


Mein Hertz

by SpoonyLupin



Series: Stumbling Through the Dark [1]
Category: Houdini & Doyle (TV)
Genre: Bromance, Cheesy, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Friendship/Love, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Male Bonding, Missing Scene, Pre-Relationship, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-13
Updated: 2016-09-25
Packaged: 2018-07-23 20:50:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 35,284
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7479465
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SpoonyLupin/pseuds/SpoonyLupin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As Houdini and Adelaide await word on Doyle’s condition, the master illusionist tries his best to keep up appearances.  After all, it wouldn’t do for the world’s greatest performer to break down, but he’s lost so much in a short amount of time. What happens when it grows to be too much? [A missing moment from The Pall of LaPier.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Façade

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by David Hoselton, David Titcher, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Harry Houdini, and various publishers including, but not limited to, FOX, Global TV, and ITV. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.
> 
> Author’s note: This story takes place during the last episode of season one (because I refuse to believe there won’t be another season of this glorious show), The Pall of LaPier. This happens after Doyle has been shot, but before the final scenes on the boat.
> 
> I’ve never written these characters before and I hope I do them justice. Please let me know what you think if you end up reading this!
> 
> I have no idea how long this will be. I just started writing without any clear idea of where it was going and it started to get out of hand (as all my stories do). I’m just going to keep writing until it decides it’s over.

Sighing heavily, Harry paced the waiting room of the hospital for about the millionth time. When he reached the end again and came face to face with the door that led to the emergency area, he stopped, placing his hands on his lips. Nothing happened. He almost expected that if he waited and stared long and hard enough, the nurse would appear and tell him Doyle was okay.

Harry narrowed his eyes at the doorknob, like it was something that had offended him greatly. Somewhere, very far in the back of his mind, Harry kept imagining that he could make the door open by force of his mind. He knew that was silly, like when he had heard his mother’s voice through the necrophone. It was simply the power of suggestion and the power that grieving could have over someone. Nothing more.

Besides, that was something that Doyle always relied on. Not him. If the situation was reversed – if Harry was the one lying in the hospital bed and Doyle was the one pacing around out here – Harry could fully see him staring at the doorknob, expecting something to happen. It was Doyle’s go-to crutch for everything, and it absolutely drove Harry mad.

Such things just weren’t empirically possible, and the sooner Doyle accepted that, the better off he would be. It only led to false hopes and eventually to heartbreak. Sometimes even thoughts of lunacy. It wasn’t so very long ago that Harry had spent a good portion of the night drinking in his room, because he had almost been convinced that his dead mother had been talking to him. Almost.

In fact, if he admitted it to himself, he had almost been _hoping_ that what had happened had been real. He would give nearly anything to be able to talk to his mother again, and for a very precarious moment, the necrophone had presented that option to him. Doyle had been right about that much. Harry had let himself believe, if only briefly, that the necrophone would be able to grant him his wish. The rational part of him knew it was still impossible, but it didn’t stop him from latching onto this insane urge to at least give it a chance. It _had_ fascinated him, just as Doyle had said.

And then Harry had allowed himself to believe that he _had_ heard his mother calling out to him. For one thing, he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that it couldn’t have been a hoax, that it couldn’t have been a show put on by someone. He had distinctly heard the name, “ _Ehrie_.” That was his family’s childhood nickname for him, derived from his birth name of Ehrich. His mother was still fond of calling him that. How many people in his life now knew that? Not many, except for Adelaide and Doyle, and he knew they hadn’t shared that information with anyone. They would have no reason to, and certainly no one else present knew that, so that left two possibilities – it had either been his mother or Harry was simply going crazy.

Harry wasn’t quite ready to fully believe either one of those things, so it had to be the power of suggestion, didn’t it? That’s what he had told Adelaide when she’d come to his room that night. It’s what he would always insist on when asked. It was what he always blamed this sort of thing on when people claimed they’d heard or seen things that simply weren’t possible. Suggestion. That was all. Nothing more.

But none of that really mattered right now. Whether or not he was really going crazy would have to be dealt with later, because there were much more pressing things to worry about at this moment, even more so than his sanity.

Doyle had been shot by Adelaide’s husband of all people, and as of right now, Harry had no idea what was happening to him. He could be dying for God’s sake. In fact, he could already be dead right now, and Harry didn’t know. He wouldn’t know until someone came out of the emergency area and told him.

That thought made Harry feel sick to his stomach. Like someone was punching him there over and over again. Almost instinctively, Harry wanted to tense up the muscles in his abdomen in order to protect himself against it, but he knew that wouldn’t do any good. The source of the pain was something that couldn’t be helped. The source of his pain was in knowing that Doyle lie in such dire circumstances and Harry couldn’t do anything about it.

Unable to stand there, staring at the unmoving door handle any longer, Harry once again resumed his pacing across the white tile of the waiting room. He made his way to the other end of the room, to the bank of windows that lined the wall. He stared out at the cobblestone lot where horses and buggies as well as a few cars were coming and going. Harry hoped that the sight of something different might take his mind off what was currently happening elsewhere in the hospital, but of course, it didn’t.

Doyle could be dying – could already be dead, in fact – and that thought, almost more so than the thought of hearing his dead mother, felt like it was driving him absolutely crazy. Harry was a take-charge sort of person. He liked to be the center of attention, liked to command an audience, and this was just something he had no power over. He wasn’t a doctor. He had no place in the operating room, in barging in and trying to see what he could do to help Doyle. It was what Harry was accustomed to doing, but none of that would help him now. Would help Doyle.

Harry could feel his face scrunching up in fear, in pain. Could almost feel the unshed tears burning his eyes, but he refused to give into it. Because he would never admit to anyone that Doyle was one of the last people he had left in the world. He would never admit that Doyle might even be his best friend in the world.

That thought was crazy, wasn’t it? As Adelaide had said to him not very long ago, he was one of the greatest entertainers in the world, beloved by millions. He should have no shortage of friends or people to spend time with. There were probably countless people out there who would give anything just to meet him, let alone befriend him. And yet, his best and only friend had been his mother.

Now that she was gone, who else did he have? He barely even spoke to his family, and the only friends he really did have were Adelaide and Doyle. How on earth did that happen? He should have a large pool of potential friends, ready to be handpicked…so where were they?

Harry, of course, knew the answer to that. It was hard for him to get close to anyone and he freely admitted that to himself. When it came right down to it, it was difficult for him to trust anyone, and that was really the source of the problem. For any new acquaintances that came into his life, it was hard for Harry to ever know if they were being genuine. Were they really all that interested in him as a person, or were they simply looking out for a bit of his fame and money?

Harry loved being who he was, but more often than not, he was coming to realize just how difficult it was for him to find anyone he could truly connect with. Harry loved his money, he loved his fame. He loved not being able to walk down the street sometimes without someone coming up to him, wanting an autograph or simply to talk to him. Harry reveled in that. He loved to be loved, but…it was an empty sort of love. None of those people really knew anything about him – about the real him – and it made his private life almost unbearably lonely. It was funny, wasn’t it? Harry had every material possession he could possibly wish for. There wasn’t anything out there he wouldn’t be able to buy himself, and yet…it was almost the money itself that made everything else so difficult.

Money and fame – the root of all evil. Isn’t that what people said?

The only person Harry had met in quite some time who could understand all of that was Doyle. He could understand the fame and the money issues, he could understand the problem of people being disingenuous just to get at a piece it. All too well.

Still, Harry had done his best to keep Doyle at arm’s length. Harry was his usual annoying, insolent self, and he had always relied on that to keep people away. To keep them from getting too close or wanting to get to know him, even if only for his money. It protected him. And yet, Doyle was the first person in a long time who didn’t let Harry’s shenanigans get to him.

Oh, Doyle was often just as irritated by Harry’s smart mouth as everyone else, but still, he stuck around. He didn’t have to. Sure, they had put together sort of an impromptu detective team, but it wasn’t like they had any obligation to keep at it or to keep doing it together. And yet, here they were. They had fallen into a sort of a routine, and Harry for one was beginning to like it. They hadn’t known each other for very long at all in the grand scheme of things, but Harry had a difficult time imagining his life without Doyle. Without these ridiculous situations that they often found themselves in.

If Harry was lucky, Doyle felt the exact same way about it. But Harry wasn’t sure he did, and Harry would rather completely hide his feelings just like he always did rather than come right out and ask. Perhaps Doyle had just fallen easily into a routine. After everything the poor man was going through, it wasn’t all that hard to see why he might like their little adventures together.

This all probably helped Doyle to keep his mind off Touie, and he probably felt almost comfortable in finding some sort of routine again. That was probably something that he hadn’t had in quite some time – a routine. Even Doyle’s writing patterns had taken a bit of a detour lately, and sometimes it was nice to find something that could become familiar.

That was what Doyle was becoming to Harry, after all – familiar. Harry was almost coming to love certain things about the man. The way he rolled his eyes at Harry. The way he pursed his lips and gave Harry a sideways stare whenever Harry said something smug or boastful. The way Doyle was coming to ignore all of that sometimes in order to press on with business.

That was what Harry really loved about him. Harry’s attitude often became a sticking point with most people, the point where they would throw up their hands in frustration and be done with him. That was what Harry relied on. He would never have to worry about anyone getting too close to him in that case. Except for Doyle. And Adelaide.

Harry hadn’t been planning on it, it had just happened. The three of them had been thrown together in the most unlikely of circumstances, and Harry hadn’t been expecting it to become anything resembling long-term. He kept expecting them to go back to their separate lives, just like he and Doyle had done before. But yet, every single time they solved a crime, every single time they thought their adventures together were at an end, something else came up. And even when they didn’t, that didn’t stop them from spending time together. It was the oddest thing.

Even when they didn’t have any pressing cases at the moment, they were tending more and more to have meals and tea times together. Adelaide had also dragged them to a few plays in London. She had told Harry that it was the least he could do after all they put up with from him. And yet, they never seemed to want to cut Harry out of their lives like he was accustomed to. For all the endless ribbing they did about him, Harry was beginning to think that a part of them enjoyed his company. That wasn’t so hard to believe, was it? That he had finally met a couple of people – other than his own mother – who didn’t absolutely dread being around him?

As much as Harry did to push people away and as hard as he tried to build a wall to keep them out, it felt nice that some people did seem to care enough to break down his defenses. That, he knew, was when he could rely on the fact that they were people who truly did care about him. Not his money or his fame, but him. And he felt no need to put those walls back up, at least not where Doyle and Adelaide were concerned.

This was quickly becoming his new way of life, and he liked it. He liked every moment when Doyle stopped by his hotel room to see if Harry wanted to get a quick bite to eat, but that might never happen again. He would never again see Doyle in his less-than-stellar suits standing in his hotel room doorway. He would never again see Doyle in his ridiculous nightshirts that he insisted on wearing. He would never again have to put up with Doyle’s God-awful pipe. As silly as it sounded, Harry found his heart hurting when he thought about the fact that none of those things might ever happen again.

Harry had just lost his mother, after all. He couldn’t lose Doyle now too. Not so soon after. There was only so much one person could handle at a time. Adelaide and Doyle were absolutely all he had left. This was what his family consisted of now, and Harry couldn’t imagine that entire family being decimated to one member in a matter of weeks. He couldn’t. He wouldn’t believe that the universe hated him that much.

It was then that he felt the pesky sting of tears in his eyes even more strongly than before. A moment later, his bottom lip gave a quiver. Harry raised his right hand in a fist, pressing his thumb and index finger against his mouth in an attempt to quell the movement. He only felt the corners of his mouth pull down even farther and then his nose began to burn as well.

Harry shut his eyes, trying his very best to think of something happy. To think of the last time he had sat with his mother, talking to her about taking her to Coney Island and eating saltwater taffy, but latching onto that memory only served to make him feel worse. That was the very last happy memory he had of her, and it only reminded him that things like that would never happen again.

Try as he might, as hard as he pressed his hand against it, he couldn’t stop his mouth from coming open in a sob. He let it out shakily, looking up at the ceiling, as if praying to some unseen power that he wouldn’t stand there crying in public. That he wouldn’t make a fool of himself in a place where everyone could see him. Even though he was alone in the waiting room at the moment, it wouldn’t do for someone to walk in and see the great Harry Houdini sobbing like a child.

Even though that would be perfectly understandable, wouldn’t it? Wasn’t it perfectly natural for someone to cry when their friend might very well be dying? But Harry found it hard enough to break down when he was by himself, let alone when he was in public. It wouldn’t do for him to make such a scene in a hospital of all places. It wouldn’t.

Just then, he heard a door on the other end of the room open. Harry took a quick deep breath in order to calm himself, then he ran his hand harshly over his eyes in an attempt to wipe away any moisture that had settled around them. Turning on his heel, he glanced at the door to the emergency ward, desperately hoping to see a nurse or someone coming to give him some news on Doyle. But no. That door stood still and closed just like it had done for the last hour.

It was the door on the wall to his right that had opened, the one that led to the lobby. There stood Adelaide, and God, it was so nice to see a friendly face. A part of Harry wanted to go to her, wanted to wrap his arms around her in a tight embrace. He almost wanted to kiss her again, but he knew that wouldn’t be welcome. After everything that had just happened, it would probably be a very cold day in hell before she let him get that close to her again. And that made his heart hurt too.

“I got here as soon as I could,” Adelaide said, seemingly unaware of the feelings warring on inside of Harry. “How is he?”

Harry only shook his head, not quite able to find his voice at first. “No change,” was all he could spit out at first, but then he realized that that bit of information wouldn’t quite do Adelaide any good. Harry desperately glanced at the door to the emergency ward again, still clinging to the hope that it would open. That someone else would join their conversation and explain things to Adelaide so he didn’t have to.

“He’s still in surgery,” Harry continued, facing Adelaide again. “They’re trying to get the bullet out, but…he’s lost a lot of blood and…” Harry let out a funny noise, a sort of a snort, but it was mostly in an attempt to mask the sob that he’d felt rising up in his throat. “After I told him that I’d lost more blood than that shaving. They didn’t know if he’d bleed to death or not, but…” Harry trailed off, taking a moment to pull his pocket watch of his waistcoat pocket. He made a show of opening it and looking at it, hoping that the next time he spoke, his voice wouldn’t be shaking quite so much. “That was over an hour ago. I haven’t heard anything since,” Harry finished desperately.

A part of him almost wanted to wrench open the damn door, march into the emergency ward, and just demand some answers already. This was getting a big ridiculous, and he didn’t know how much longer he could take this uncertainty.

Adelaide let out a heavy sigh, making her way across the room to join Harry at the windows. She stared out, then said, “This is my fault.”

“What?” Harry incredulously. “You saved his life!”

Adelaide gave him a sideways stare. “Are we sure about that?”

“Well,” Harry conceded, “you stopped him from being injured further at any rate. If you hadn’t…done what you did, he very well might have been dead before help arrived. You know that. You know it could have been so much worse than it was.”

Adelaide shook her head defiantly. “But I knew it was dangerous for you to be there! That was why I didn’t want the two of you to come along in the first place. I knew something bad was going to happen to one of you, and I still let you join me on what should have been my undertaking.”

“In case you hadn’t noticed,” Harry replied, feeling a tiny bit of his attitude returning, “we’ve been joining you on your jobs for some time now. That’s never stopped us before, and besides, we have a tendency to do whatever the hell we want. Short of locking us up, nothing could have kept us away. And even then, you know I would have made it,” he said proudly. He stuck his thumbs in his belt and puffed out his chest.

Adelaide scoffed softly and rolled her eyes. “I know,” she said tiredly, “nothing can hold you. But maybe I could have convinced Doyle to go home and to-“

“He’s the one who saved McKinley,” Harry reminded her. “Without him up on that balcony, there wouldn’t have been anyone to stop Benjamin from getting at least one shot in at the president. It was only because of Doyle that I even knew Benjamin was the assassin. If Doyle hadn’t caused the commotion he did, I never would have had the time to push McKinley out of the way. Everything would have been for naught.”

”Perhaps,” Adelaide whispered, hanging her head, “perhaps not. If this has taught me anything at all, it’s that try as you might, you can never prepare yourself for what’s going to happen. We tried our hardest to save McKinley and still, it came so close. I wanted so badly to believe that Benjamin wasn’t in on this and-“ Adelaide broke off, a sob swallowing up her own words.

“Hey,” Harry said softly, gently. He turned to face her fully and reached up his left arm. He had intended to rest it comfortingly on her shoulder, but then he realized that he didn’t know if that would be a welcome gesture or not. He closed his hand into a fist instead, dropping it down to his side again. “You loved him. You wanted to believe the very best of him. There’s no shame in that. We always want to believe that our loved ones are capable of honorable actions.”

Shaking her head again, Adelaide said, “But I knew. You pointed that out to me before we left Canada – that I didn’t trust him. He had already lied to me and broken my heart.” She glanced up at Harry, her eyes glistening with tears. “How could I believe anything he said to me ever again? Even though he claimed he did it for noble reasons, he left me to grieve his _death_. How could anyone do that to someone they claim to love?”

“Even so,” Harry told her, “you did love him and trust him very much at one point. That doesn’t just go away overnight. There’s nothing wrong in still wanting to believe the very best of him. That’s something we’re all accustomed to, I think – giving our loved ones the benefit of the doubt, even when they might not deserve it.

“Besides,” Harry tried next, not seeing any change to her expression, “Doyle is a grown man. As you’re so fond of saying, he is quite capable of taking care of himself. And I am too. We hardly need protection.”

Adelaide frowned deeply, still not lifting her head from head from its hanging position. “I know you don’t, but that still doesn’t stop me from feeling guilty. It still doesn’t stop me from feeling like I could have – should have done something.”

“Like what?” Harry asked, sounding genuinely curious. “What could you have done? I think we all can agree that our priority was saving the president. That’s what it should have been. That’s why we were all there. That’s why you couldn’t have kept neither me nor Doyle away even if you had tried. Doyle’s important too, of course, but…” Harry trailed off, finding his words dying in his throat.

“But you don’t know if McKinley is more important in the grand scheme of things,” Adelaide said, finally glancing up at Harry. “You can’t say that, can you? Doyle’s more important to you and that’s all that really matters right now. That’s all that should matter.”

“The president dying would have thrown the country into chaos,” Harry protested, even though his words were half-hearted. He didn’t really believe what he was saying, because deep down, he knew that Adelaide was right. Doyle _was_ more important to him and Doyle’s well-being was all he cared about at the moment. Everything else was inconsequential to him, as selfish as that was.

“Doyle dying would throw things into chaos too,” Adelaide insisted. “Maybe not as many things as McKinley’s death, but things nonetheless. Doyle has Touie – an invalid – and Mary, and Kingsley. Who would take care of all of them something happens to him? McKinley’s children died when they were all young, as far as I’m aware.”

Adelaide stopped for a very long time, watching Harry closely. He was staring straight ahead, seemingly enthralled at something outside, although Adelaide couldn’t see what might be holding his attention. He didn’t seem to be registering anything anyway. It was like he was looking at things without really seeing them, almost like he was looking through them, at something beyond.

When he didn’t reply or even made any acknowledgement and he’d heard her, Adelaide finally asked, “What would happen to _you_?”

Harry blinked and looked around wearily, as if he had awoken from a deep sleep. He must have been lost in his memories of things long past. When Harry finally focused on her again, he asked, “What? I’m fine. I’ll be fine.” His gaze went right back to the window, but it was still focused far away and unseeing. “You don’t need to worry about me.” He had attempted to sound like his usual assured and confident self, but it didn’t quite work.

Not wanting to state the obvious, Adelaide fumbled around with her words for several seconds. When she did speak again, she settled on, “Then why did you appear to be on the verge of tears when I came in? Why could you barely form a coherent sentence? I’m a police officer. I may not be as observant as you at some things, but I’m not entirely oblivious to them either.”

“You don’t have to be so blatant about it,” Harry said. He made a show out of adjusting his waistcoat and suit jacket, trying as ever to make himself appear well put-together. “Anybody with any tact would have pretended they hadn’t noticed at all.”

“Tact,” Adelaide repeated, “something you obviously don’t know anything about, so who are you to talk?”

“I resent that remark,” Harry grumbled. “I know what tact is. I just choose not to use it. Being blatantly in your face is a lot more fun.”

In any event, Adelaide’s words had the exact effect that she had been hoping for. It got Harry off the topic of Doyle for just a moment, long enough for Harry to smile briefly before letting out a sigh again.

“Okay,” Harry admitted then. “So I may have been teary-eyed. So what?”

“So nothing,” Adelaide said, tilting her head towards him sympathetically. “I told you before – it is okay to not be strong all the time. It’s okay to be sad. It’s okay to be hurting when your friend is in the hospital and you’re not sure what might happen to him.”

It was her turn to face him and once again, they were caught in that awkward dance. She raised her hand to rest it on his shoulder, but she paused just as he had not so very long ago. Adelaide lowered her hand and cleared her voice before she repeated, “It’s okay.”

“Except when it isn’t,” Harry replied defiantly. He tilted his head back, still clinging to that imagine – the one he had come to perfect of standing on the stage with his chin out and chest puffed out. The one that was meant to convey that nothing in the world could possibly hold him down, could possibly defeat him. Nothing. “I’ve built a career on being able to escape – on being able to survive – anything. I can’t let that illusion crumble because-“ Harry stopped, unable to form the words. He simply gestured back towards the door to the emergency ward, the one that still remained maddeningly closed.

“And as you just said,” Adelaide pointed out, “that’s an _illusion_. It’s a character. I would hardly think that anyone would expect you to be this great, towering pillar of strength _all_ the time. I also hardly think anyone would judge you for showing that this is affecting you. If anything, they might judge you even more harshly for pretending to have no emotions whatsoever when your friend may be dying.”

Adelaide paused, watching Harry for any signs that her words may be sinking in. When she still saw no flicker of emotion, she added, “This is _Arthur_.” She made a show of pointing to the emergency ward door, of trying her best to get Harry to look at it. When he still didn’t budge, she said, “I know you two are men – worse yet, men in the public eye – and that you have this misconception that you have to keep up appearances. That you’re not supposed to show your emotions or reveal the fact that you have very real feelings. But you do. Everyone does and everyone knows you do. It’s a very _human_ thing, so stop acting like you’re made out of the same metal all of your shackles are made out of! Stop pretending like you _don’t_ care. Because I know you do.”

For a moment, Harry thought he was going to get away with it. He stood there staunchly, continuing to act like Adelaide’s words weren’t affecting him. And then it happened. His bottom lip quivered again, and try as he might, he couldn’t keep his breathing steady. He gasped in a sharp breath which came out in a ragged sob. His eyes began to burn again and that was when he knew he was fighting a losing battle.

He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t continue to stand there and act like none of this was bothering him. He couldn’t pretend that if Doyle died, that Harry would return home and act like nothing had happened at all. Harry’s entire career was based on an act – an act he had built up around himself like yet another wall. But here, when it mattered the most, he found his entire façade shattering before him.

If Doyle was there, he would probably tell Harry to give it up already. That Harry wasn’t fooling anyone. And perhaps Harry was tired of trying to trick people, of trying to convince them that they saw things that weren’t really there. He was just tired. Of always being his best, of always being en pointe. Of always being…perfect.

Harry squeezed his eyes shut, trying desperately not to let the tears fall, but he couldn’t quite do it anymore. Images flashed through his mind of Doyle bleeding out in his arms, of the last time Doyle had looked at him before losing consciousness. Then Harry’s mind began to delve into even darker things like Doyle lying motionless in his hospital bed, and Doyle’s casket being lowered into the ground. They were there before he could stop them, and he pressed a hand against his eyes as if that might keep him from seeing what was already inside his mind.

“He’s my best friend,” Harry whispered, and he was almost shocked when he realized that the words had come from him. He hadn’t intended to say them, they had just come, like the images in his mind that he was praying would stop.

And then the very thing that he’d wanted to do this entire time happened, although now it was for entirely the wrong reasons. Adelaide’s hand was on his back, pulling him a little bit closer. She pressed her chin against Harry’s shoulder in a sort of awkward, one-armed hug.

This wasn’t how things were supposed to be. Not even close. He was the one who was supposed to be comforting her, not the other way around. And besides, Harry’s body burned with the desire for much more than a reassuring but sloppy embrace.

“It’s okay,” came Adelaide’s voice in his ears. “It’s okay to not _be_ okay,” she whispered, although Harry was pretty sure it wasn’t.

_To be continued…_


	2. Alive

Harry was deeply uncomfortable with the way Adelaide was hugging him. It felt horribly awkward, but yet at the same time, Harry wanted more. He craved more. He wanted nothing more than to take her in his arms and hold her so tightly like he was never going to let her go. Harry knew that such a gesture wouldn’t be welcome, so he stood there with Adelaide giving him perhaps the most unnerving one-armed hug ever.

Harry considered letting go of her, putting an end this charade of comfort once and for all, and yet, he couldn’t. He knew that Adelaide was trying her very best to seem sincere and to offer him the shoulder he needed to cry on. And Harry needed it. He thought the only thing worse than awkwardly hugging was not touching her at all. At least she was making it known that she was there for him, that he wasn’t alone in this, and he didn’t want to let go of that. He didn’t want to let go of his only physical human contact in that moment.

Fully aware of how completely crazy he was probably going, Harry couldn’t quite remember ever experiencing such two completely disparate emotions warring inside him at the same time. When had things ever gotten so complicated with Adelaide? Of course, he knew the answer to that. Things had been so much simpler between them before the dreaded kiss. Why in the hell had he ever allowed such a thing to happen in the first place? He knew the answer to that too, and damn. Why did everything seem to go to hell the moment he came home to find his mother dead?

Even since then – that horrible, awful, dreaded day – nothing had been the same. For any of them.

Just then, it happened – the moment Harry had been waiting for ever since arriving in this godforsaken hospital ward. Finally, at long last, he heard a door open again, and this time, it was the one to the emergency ward. The one he had been staring daggers at on and off the entire time he’d been there. The one he had been trying to will open with the power of his mind alone.

At the sound, Adelaide let go of him, and Harry wasn’t entirely sure whether he was happy or sad about that. He didn’t even know if he liked the thought of Adelaide touching him anymore. At one point, such a gesture would have sent sparks of pleasure shooting through his body, and now, he could barely even stand it. But still, he wanted more. How was that even possible? What in the hell was wrong with him?

But now was not the time to worry about those things. There were much more important issues that commanded their attention right now – like the doctor standing in the doorway. This man had the sleeves of his white dress shirt rolled up and was currently wiping his hands on a white towel.

Harry immediately made his way across the room, but stopped several feet short of the man. Harry had been about to insist on some answers, to demand to know why in the hell he had been kept waiting for so long. But he couldn’t. It seemed that now that Harry might finally be able to get some answers, he didn’t know if he wanted them any longer. As long as he didn’t know what had happened, he could go on pretending that everything was okay. That Doyle was fine. What if the doctor told him that Doyle had died on the operating table? Harry wasn’t quite prepared for that, and he didn’t think he could handle that kind of news right now.

For a very brief moment, Harry imagined that if that happened, he would find himself screaming at the top of his lungs in grief before picking up the nearest waiting room chair and chucking it across the room. Harry’s heart felt like it had soared up into his throat and that it was almost blocking his windpipe. It was hard to breathe and he couldn’t find his voice.

“I’m Doctor Steiner,” the man said. He had finished up drying his hands and had thrown the towel over his left shoulder. He then stuck his right hand out for Harry’s.

Harry swallowed hard, desperately trying to get rid of the lump that had settled there. He reached out his hand and took the doctor’s, but it was a sort of automatic movement. Harry couldn’t quite register what he was doing. Everything seemed far away to him all of a sudden, like he was a million miles away from the waiting room. He wasn’t even sure he was seeing the doctor anymore, the very man that was standing right in front of him. Harry blinked his eyes, trying to get his mind to wrap around what was happening.

It was the same sort of feeling Harry had experienced when he found his mother dead. Everything felt unreal all at once, and Harry almost thought he was losing touch with reality somehow. At the same time, if the doctor was about to give them the worst possible news, Harry knew without a doubt that he would never forget that moment. Like he would never stop seeing his mother lying there motionless.

Perhaps this was what being scared to death felt like. Harry had experienced it all the time in his escapes – even more so when he did something that Doyle would call foolish, like jumping into a frozen Lake Michigan, for example – but nothing like this. All of his escapes had been accompanied by extraordinary surges of adrenaline, which he supposed, kept him from feeling the true effects of being terrified. But now, there was absolutely no thrill, no excitement to distract from that feeling of utter and pure dread.

“I’m Constable Adelaide Stratton of Scotland Yard and this is Harry Houdini,” Adelaide finally spoke up when she realized that Harry wasn’t going to. That he was too distracted with his own thoughts to even make simple conversation.

“Yes, Mister Houdini,” Doctor Steiner said, sounding genuine, “I’ve seen your act. Quite impressive.”

Normally, Harry would have been all over meeting a fan. Harry would have been grinning from ear to ear, asking which show the doctor had seen and offering to give him an autograph. But Harry didn’t have time for that right now! Doyle could very well be dead and here was his doctor, trying to flatter Harry of all things. It was almost maddening. Was the universe punishing Harry for some sort of misdeed? Here was the thing that Harry loved most in the world – being recognized and admired – and he couldn’t revel in it. What had he ever done to deserve this? He just wanted to know if Doyle was okay, damn it.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, Harry had an image of Doyle smiling smugly at this. Harry could almost even hear Doyle’s voice, teasing him over this. _‘Do you mean to tell me that you were so concerned about my well-being that you didn’t care to hand out autographs?’_ Doyle would have asked him.

Again, Harry had the strangest feeling of two completely opposite emotions erupting inside him. A part of him wanted to wipe the complacent smile off Doyle’s face that would accompany that remark, but then an almost devastating sense of sadness crept over Harry when he wondered if Doyle would ever even smile again.

As if sensing this, Adelaide rested a soft hand on Harry’s upper arm, and this time, it did feel comforting. It was gentle, and soothing, and _relaxed_ in a way their awkward hug hadn’t been. It didn’t feel like Adelaide was simply going through the motions now, but genuinely trying to comfort him. Harry automatically felt his opposite hand coming up to rest on top of hers, and that felt okay too. It wasn’t fueled by any sort of romantic feelings or a sense of duty; it was simply a gesture by two people trying to comfort each other while waiting to hear how their mutual friend was doing. Nothing more.

“How is Doctor Doyle?” Adelaide asked, trying desperately to steer the topic back to the matter at hand.

Doctor Steiner nodded, placing his hands on his hips. “We removed the bullet and he made it through that, which is what I was most concerned about.”

“So he’s okay?” Harry immediately asked, only slightly aware of how desperate he sounded. He felt like he latched onto that little bit of information, clinging to the fact that Doyle had pulled through the surgery.

“Understand,” Doctor Steiner said, immediately pulling Harry out of his first sense of hope in hours, “he’s still unconscious, very weak, and in a lot of pain. There was a lot of soft tissue damage and he lost an inordinate amount of blood. But we’ve basically done all we can and the rest is up to him. It all depends on how quickly he heals, how well his blood supply replenishes itself, and whether or not he develops any infections. There’s still room for a lot to go wrong and even if nothing does, it’s still going to be a long road to recovery for him.”

Harry sucked in a sharp breath and let it out slowly, begging himself not to begin crying in front of the doctor. His fan. Adelaide’s hand tightened on his arm and Harry replied by squeezing her hand in his. Still, the gesture felt nothing but comfortable and calming, and Harry was glad for that. Glad that everything between him and Adelaide didn’t automatically spell doom.

“We are still doing all we can,” Doctor Steiner said, trying his best to sound reassuring. “We’re keeping him comfortable and monitoring his condition in case it worsens. But unless or until that happens…as I said, it depends on him.”

“Can we see him?” Harry asked, probably sounding a bit frantic. That was really all he’d wanted since this entire ordeal had begun – to see Doyle with his own eyes, so he wouldn’t have to rely on what he was told. Harry just wanted to lay eyes on Doyle in the hope that it might assuage some of his fears. That it might calm the worsening sense of panic he felt coiling up inside him like some sort of exotic snake.

“Please?” Adelaide asked.

Doctor Steiner frowned. “As I said, he’s still very weak.” He paused for a very long time, looking back and forth between Harry’s and Adelaide’s concerned faces. Finally, he sighed and conceded, “I suppose one of you at a time would be all right.”

Harry and Adelaide immediately looked at each other, but neither one of them said or did anything. Harry almost wanted to tell Adelaide to go ahead, because ladies were supposed to go first, but then he didn’t. A part of Harry almost felt like it was dying to see Doyle, and Harry _wanted_ to be selfish.

“Go,” Adelaide said around a smile, like she could read Harry’s thoughts.

For a moment, Harry was going to protest. She was the lady, she was _supposed_ to go first, he kept telling himself. The more he thought about it, however, Harry didn’t know if Adelaide would like that kind of reasoning or not, so he chose not to say anything.

“He’s your best friend,” Adelaide said firmly. She nodded her head towards the emergency ward door and insisted, “Go.”

Harry stared at her, then opened his mouth to protest. Almost immediately, he thought better of his decision. Adelaide was giving him exactly what he wanted, exactly what he had been hoping for for _hours_. Perhaps he just needed to shut up for once in his life and take what was offered. All at once, he was glad that he had chosen to confide in her about Doyle being his best friend, because now she understood how terribly important this was to him.

Harry clasped Adelaide’s hand in his for a second longer before he disengaged himself from her. For a moment, he actually missed her touch and hoped it wouldn’t be the last time they would share such physical contact. But in the end, Harry decided not to worry about that anymore, at least for the time being. His best friend awaited him.

~~~~~~~~~~

Almost as soon as Harry entered Doyle’s hospital room, he regretted it. Harry wanted nothing more than to turn around and run away, because this wasn’t what he had been expecting at all. But when he thought about it, he didn’t know why he hadn’t been anticipating a horrific scene. Doyle had been shot, after all, and Doctor Steiner had warned them that it wasn’t pretty.

Harry supposed that he’d wanted, more than anything, for his worries to be calmed when he saw Doyle. But in reality, Doyle really looking nothing like himself, and that only served to make the gross, intense feeling in Harry’s stomach much, much worse.

The last – and the only – time Harry had seen Doyle in the hospital had been after he’d been poisoned with ergot. Doyle had certainly looked haggard, and tired, and feverish then. Hell, he’d been having a seizure the last time Harry walked into his room, but it hadn’t been so bad that it enveloped Harry with a sickening sense of dread. It had been serious then, yes, but it hadn’t quite been on the level of a gunshot wound. And Doyle hadn’t quite appeared to be as near death as he did now.

There was almost no color to Doyle’s face. His skin was nearly the same shade of white as the sheet pulled up to his chest. Large beads of sweat stood out on his forehead, and his dark hair clung in strands to his clammy skin. His skin itself almost appeared thinner and more translucent, and that thought, perhaps more than any other, scared Harry the most. There seemed to be absolutely no life left in this man that lay before him. A man that normally seemed so full of energy and ridiculous ideas about things that couldn’t possibly exist.

Harry found himself staring at Doyle as more ludicrous thoughts entered his mind. Just as he had done at the door to the ward itself, Harry almost let himself imagine that if he stared long and hard enough, that Doyle would wake up. That he’d tell Harry to stop staring at him, damn it, and let him sleep in peace.

Why did Harry keep entertaining things like this that couldn’t possibly happen? A small part of Harry sort of saw why Doyle was so prone to his fantastical ideas about things. In a way, it made things seem a little bit easier than reality forced him to believe.

Harry opened his mouth, trying desperately to think of something to say, but nothing came to him. There were those crazy thoughts again, making him think that if he said something smart, then Doyle would have to wake up and tell him off.

And then all it once, it hit him – the perfect statement that would have made Doyle give him that annoyed, sideways stare of his. In reality though, Harry knew that it wouldn’t do much of anything. Just like magic words to a trick, it was something imagined for effect. It wasn’t real. But the words were escaping Harry before he could quite stop them.

“You really need to stop dying,” Harry said, his voice cracking on the last word. “It’s getting old.”

Harry paused, staring long and hard and Doyle, but the older man didn’t even stir. He gave absolutely no sign that he had even heard Harry, let alone even understood what was being said.

“And that’s the part where you’re supposed to wake up,” Harry continued on. Now that he had begun talking, Harry discovered that he couldn’t quite stop. It was what he did, after all – run his mouth when he couldn’t think of anything else constructive to do. Besides, the silence in the room was quickly beginning to get to him. “You’re supposed to tell me to stop giving you a hard time about things that aren’t even your fault.”

Harry waited again and still nothing happened. He let out a short breath, placing his hands on his hips and turning his head to stare out the windows on the far wall. “I’m the one always risking my life for death-defying stunts,” Harry whispered. “You play it safe by locking yourself in a room and writing, and this is where you’ve ended up. Why must you always try and one-up me?” he asked tiredly, turning back to Doyle’s bed again. He had almost been expecting to see Doyle narrowing his eyes at him, just like he always did when Harry was smart, but still nothing.

Harry took a moment to rub at his eyes and run a hand through his hair. He almost even hoped that that would change something when he looked back at Doyle’s bed. But the man continued to lay there, unmoving and unresponsive.

Harry didn’t know why he felt like he had to have some sort of a plan in order to be in this room. Why couldn’t he simply sit with Doyle and wait, hoping that things might change? Why did Harry feel compelled to rouse Doyle awake somehow? Probably because Harry was never one to sit still in his life. Was never one to laze around while he waited for things to happen. Harry went out and got what he wanted. He _made_ things happen.

So what was he supposed to do when he could no longer do that? When everything he tried fell completely flat? When there were things that were completely out of his realm of control?

Harry hung his head for a moment before making his way from the end of Doyle’s bed around to the left side. He stood over Doyle for a while, staring down at the man that he had come to think of as his best friend. It seemed so very wrong to Harry that Doyle wasn’t giving him some sort of deadpan expression or annoyed glance. That was what he had almost come to expect from Doyle, and now that it was gone, Harry desperately missed it.

Running his teeth over his bottom lip in trepidation for a while, Harry finally took a few steps forward, closing in on the bed. He dropped down on the side of the mattress, and once again, he found himself hoping that the movement just might rouse Doyle from his unconsciousness. Still, the doctor remained motionless.

“Doc,” Harry said, breaking the silence that had settled into the room. “You can’t do this, you know. Your kids are waiting for you to recover and come home. What would they do if something happened to you? Who would take care of them? What would Touie do if she someday woke up again and found that you had… _died_?” Harry’s voice broke on the last word. Sniffling slightly, but trying to cover it up, Harry continued on, “She would be devastated. Kingsley and Mary would be devastated. It’s hard enough losing one parent, and they’re already living without their mother. Don’t make them go on without you too.”

Harry took a deep and calming breath, taking a moment to stare off at the other end of the room. It was becoming harder and harder for him to sit there, to continue to watch Doyle unmoving and unresponsive. Harry didn’t quite know how much longer he could stay there, but at the same time, he didn’t quite want to leave either. He had a horrible thought that if he left, Doyle just might take his last breath, even though there was no reason to think that. Harry supposed that he simply wanted to feel like he was making some sort of difference to Doyle by being there.

What in the hell was it about all of this that was making Harry feel so off-kilter? Why was he feeling so very many different things at the same time? He wanted to leave, he wanted to go. He wanted to touch Adelaide, he didn’t want to touch her. Harry vaguely wondered if it was this that would make him realize he was crazy, rather than possibly hearing his dead mother speaking to him.

But then Harry latched onto Adelaide’s name as he turned back to Doyle. “Adelaide needs you too,” Harry said quietly. “You didn’t see her when you were unconscious after your ergot poisoning. Obviously. She wouldn’t tell you – she doesn’t like to admit that she’s weak – but she was scared out of her mind. I guess she’s coming to enjoy this little impromptu detective team we’ve put together. It seems there’s actually someone out there that _likes_ spending time with you other than your family. Imagine that.”

Harry looked down at Doyle one more time before pushing himself off the bed. He took several steps away, placing his hands on his hips and refusing to look at Doyle.

“You’re free to wake up at any time and tell me to stop lying,” Harry muttered. He waited, still almost expecting to hear Doyle’s voice coming from the bed behind him. When nothing happened, Harry turned back to the bed and said, “Well, not lying so much as beating around the bush. You’re going to make me say it, aren’t you? Just don’t wake up immediately after I do and laugh at me for making myself so vulnerable.”

Taking a few steps back to Doyle’s bed, Harry finally admitted, “I need you too.” He let out of a soft breath of laughter. “I know. The great Harry Houdini admitting to such a thing – scandalous – but it’s true. Are you happy now? I said it.”

Harry quickly stepped around the bed, feeling his cheeks burn in embarrassment. He stormed over to the window like he was angry, and perhaps he was. He felt angry at whatever powers that be decided that putting Doyle in the hospital twice had been a good idea. Hadn’t the man already been through enough? Harry was also angry at himself, because he had such a hard time talking about his feelings.

He was raised to believe that a man should never show his feelings. Harry’s father never approved of Harry and his brothers crying when they were upset or hurt, and he never let them discuss any of their personal feelings. It just wasn’t something that was done – a man was always strong and stalwart – but perhaps time for keeping up appearances was over.

What was hiding his feelings now going to accomplish? There was no one else in the room to see if he was about to make a fool out of himself. It was just Harry and Doyle, and what would it hurt if Harry was to be honest about his feelings, just for a moment? Perhaps Doyle might even be able to hear him, and it would help him to overcome his ailments. After all, Doctor Steiner had said that it was all up to Doyle now. Maybe, just maybe, if Harry told him how important he was to him, it just might some sort of difference.

Turning back to Doyle’s bed, Harry slowly put one foot in front of the other. He still wasn’t completely certain he was going to do this, but he continued to make his way back to Doyle’s bed nonetheless.

When he reached it, Harry dropped back down onto the mattress again. Harry sighed, reaching out for Doyle’s hand which was lying unmoving across his stomach. Harry slipped his index and middle fingers underneath it and then grasped it fully in his hand, lifting it from Doyle’s stomach. Harry placed his free hand on stop of Doyle’s, holding it tightly in between both of his.

Harry threw one last glance at the door behind him to make sure that there was no one who might be able to hear what he was about to say. When he turned back to Doyle, he whispered, “I was talking to Adelaide out in the waiting room. I told her that you’re my best friend. And you are. I need you to pull through this, because…you’re one of the last things I have left in this world. Without my mother, I only have you and Adelaide now.”

Harry scoffed slightly. He leaned back, taking a moment to glance to the window once more, as if it might contain the words that he was struggling to form. Now that he had begun talking to Doyle more candidly, he found that he wanted to continue, but he was having a little bit of a difficult time finding the right words. When one never spoke about such things, it was hard to suddenly try and do so.

“That sort of makes the two of sound like a last resort,” Harry suddenly said, frowning, “and you’re not. You know I was enjoying the company of you two long before Ma died. It’s been such a very long time since I’ve…had friends like this. Which sounds so ridiculous, I know. People would jump at the chance to meet me, let alone be my friend. But more often than not, they’re mostly drawn to this image that I’ve created, this _illusion_. What’s funny is that I’ve brought it all on myself. This was what I wanted, this is what I’ve worked so long and hard for. And I have every material possession and amount of money to show for it that I could want. What I haven’t had for the longest time was any sort of close relationship with anyone, other than my mother. I had no friends. No one I could confide in, except for her.” Harry paused for a very long time before he added, “Until I met you. How pathetic is that?”

Harry suddenly drew in a sharp breath. He fastened his teeth over his bottom lip and closed his eyes. Being so personal with Doyle was one thing, but he wasn’t about to start crying over Doyle’s unresponsive body. Harry did have some shame, after all.

“There’s so many things you can understand that other people can’t,” Harry went on. “Constantly having to be on guard, because you never know what people might want with you – whether they’re being genuine or not.” Harry suddenly frowned and conceded, “Well, you are prone to believing in things that you shouldn’t, like fear-eating demons and psychics who claim to be in contact with the dead. But you’re still aware of the fact that you’re in the public eye and that you need to be cautious for your own safety as well as that of your family. I’d wager to guess that that’s why you don’t have many close friendships of your own either. At least, I don’t think you do, other than Bram – again, someone in the public eye. Correct me if I’m wrong, but you’ve never mentioned any other friends. Mediums and such things are okay if only for the excitement they might provide, but you’d never dare to let any of them – or anyone else for that matter – get emotionally close to you, would you? Because there’s always a question in the back of your mind about whether or not they’re really trustworthy. Whether you admit that to me or not, the facts speak for themselves.

“All you had for a long time was your wife and children,” Harry went on. “Just like me with my mother, there was really no need to seek out the companionship of anyone else. We were happy and content with what we had, as we should be. But after your wife became unresponsive, you must have been lonely. You still have your children, of course, but that doesn’t make up for adult companionship. You’re just like me in a lot of ways. We’ve closed ourselves off to the friendship of others for so long, and then…we sort of just fell into each other’s laps when we needed each other the most.”

A small smile spread across Harry’s lips. “You can pretend all you like, but it doesn’t hide the fact that you’ve done absolutely nothing to distance yourself from me. You’ve come to enjoy our time together as much as I have, haven’t you?”

Harry paused, almost as if waiting for some sort of response on Doyle’s part. That ridiculous and unfounded hope that something just might happen if he hoped or tried hard enough, as silly as Harry knew that was. Still, nothing happened. Doyle remained quiet and unmoving.

“I can’t imagine where’d I’d be right now if not for you and Adelaide,” Harry admitted. “Every day, every second is a struggle without my mother. As much as I try to pretend I’m fine, I’m really not, and you know that. Try as I might, I can’t possibly hide that from the two of you. And…you don’t know how long I’ve wanted a _friend_ that could easily know that much about me – could tell when I was lying and could tell when I wasn’t okay. It doesn’t take a brilliant mind to know that someone wouldn’t be okay after losing their mother – their only friend in the world – but I tried so damn hard to hide it. And both you and Adelaide could see right through that.”

Harry took a deep breath, trying to calm himself for what he was about to say next. He ran a hand through his hair before continuing on. “The truth is, I’m a mess. I don’t even know what I’m doing half the time, I feel like I’m in such a fog. A part of me wants to crawl into bed and never come out. And I thought about doing just that when I was in New York just before I came to meet you two in Canada. But I think I knew that doing just that might have been worse. I knew that once I did it – crawled into the dark and safe place that was my bed – I may never come out. Who would really miss me if I did so, anyway? Yeah, my adoring public that held tickets to my performances, or wanted to obtain tickets – they’d probably be devastated to learn that I’d canceled all my shows. But was there really anyone in my personal life who would care that I’d more or less disappeared off the face of the earth?

“How sad is that?” Harry asked. “That the only thing I might have had left to live for was my fans. I barely speak to my family anymore. I’m away from home so much that I may as well be dead to them. No one else would care that I was gone. But then I thought of you and Adelaide. A part of me…dared to hope that one of you might possibly care if you never heard from me again.”

Harry choked back a sob, and then the strangest thing happened. If he wasn’t mistaken or imagining things, he thought he felt Doyle’s hand flinch slightly in his. Harry stared down at Doyle’s hand, waiting and watching for it to move again, to give any sign at all that Doyle was responding to Harry’s wish, but nothing more happened. For a moment, Harry thought he might be going crazy again, imagining things that weren’t there. Or perhaps there had been a much more logical explanation for that. Harry had been trying to contain a sob when it had happened, so perhaps he’d somehow jostled Doyle’s arm and made his hand stir in Harry’s. Nothing more. But a very tiny part in the back of Harry’s mind wanted to believe that Doyle was actually responding to him. Was letting him know that he did care about Harry, that he wouldn’t want anything bad to happen to him.

Lifting one of his hands from Doyle’s, Harry pressed it against his mouth instead. He wasn’t going to start crying. Not now. It suddenly felt very important to Harry that he get through this – that he let Doyle know exactly how much he meant to him. If the movement of Doyle’s hand _had_ been a sign from Doyle – and Harry still wasn’t sure that it was – then that meant that Doyle was hearing him. That Doyle understood what he was saying. And Harry wanted him to know, perhaps more than he’d ever wanted anything. Especially when Harry didn’t know if he’d ever get this chance again. Doyle had to know in case anything happened to him.

“I’m not just imagining that, am I?” Harry asked cautiously. “That the two of you might actually enjoy my company. I know I can be an insufferable ass sometimes, but…you two always put up with it, no questions asked. I have to admit that that’s the thought that kept me from crawling into my bed and never coming out. All I kept thinking about was that I had two friends in you guys that I was actually beginning to care about.” Harry stopped, inhaling a sharp intake of breath.

“All right,” Harry admitted. “I think I’m way past that point now. Way past the point of beating around the bush where the two of you are concerned. I already cared about you and Adelaide, and I have for a long time. That’s why I had to come back. My mother was gone, and the absolute last people I had left in the world were in Canada. I couldn’t just let the two of you slip out of my life.

“I still wasn’t sure if you two would have let me go or not – whether you would have come looking for me or not,” Harry went on. “I like to think you would have, but…sometimes I’m not so sure. Believe it or not, this attitude of mine actually pushes people away sometimes. Crazy, right? You and Adelaide give me hell for it, but…you never actually run the other direction, which is what a lot of people have done in the past.

“I keep remembering that night in the convent,” Harry recalled, “when we discovered that Sister Grace was the killer. You told me that you were damn impressed, despite the fact that I was an insufferable ass the entire time. A part of me thought that that might be the last time that I saw you. That you would have gotten so absolutely sick of me in the short time that we spent together that you’d never bother with me again. But then Lydia Belworth was nearly killed and…there you were again. You and Adelaide both. A part of me was stunned, even though I never would have admitted it. Not back then.

“Still, I kept thinking you two would eventually grow so sick to death of me that you’d just cut me out of your lives,” Harry said. “I hoped you wouldn’t, but…it’s what everyone eventually does when it comes to me. It’s what I’ve come to rely on. I never have to worry about anyone getting too close, because I eventually just drive them away. Then I never have to worry about getting hurt, or about them taking advantage of me. But the longer this has gone on with you and Adelaide, I’ve come to realize something. That I didn’t want to drive you two away, because I was coming to rely on the two of you. Not just as friends, but almost as a substitution for the family I was lacking. I had my mother, of course, but…a part of me still wished for more.

“Then when I found out my mother was gone,” Harry went on, this time a bit breathlessly, “all I could think about was seeing the two of you again. Seeing the last two people I had left on this earth. It wasn’t just about trying to run away from my mother’s death, although you were right – that was definitely part of it. It was about…getting back to the only two people, other than my mother, who made me feel safe. Who made me feel like a whole person.

“That was my option – hiding in my bed forever, or coming back to the two of you,” Harry said. “And I knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that if I chose the former, I’d never come out of it alive. I’d probably never see the light of day again. I’d probably be swallowed up in this massive hole of grief, and depression, and self-pity. I knew that if I had any chance at all to make it through my mother’s death, it needed to be with the two of you by my side. You two gave me a purpose. When we were solving crimes, when we were finding killers, it made me feel…needed. Important. Oh, I feel important where my fame is concerned, but…it’s not the same thing, as I’m sure you’re aware.

“Oh, I love who I am,” Harry said proudly, throwing his head back slightly, “don’t get me wrong. I wouldn’t trade that for anything in the world.” Harry suddenly frowned deeply, staring down at the floor. “Except for maybe my mother,” he added, almost absently. “But that doesn’t really matter, does it? The point is, solving crimes with you two made me feel important in another way entirely. It made me feel like I was doing some sort of good in this world. That I was helping to save lives in a way that my stunts never could. It made me feel alive. It gave me a purpose. A different kind of purpose.

“My mother always told me that I was a survivor,” Harry told Doyle. “That there wasn’t anything I couldn’t escape from. A part of me was very afraid that that would turn out to be false when I lost her. Like I said, I really wanted to crawl into that bed and never come out. To just give up and not know the pain of losing her anymore. But then that would have meant that everything my mother did for me, every single time she told me I was a survivor – it would all be meaningless. Her words would be empty. I couldn’t do that to her, so I needed to come back to the two of you.”

Harry laughed a little bit, and that felt good. It was nice to be able to let go of the tiny bit of stress that had been building up inside him like a giant ball of twine. This, at least, helped to make it feel like had begun to unravel. “As crazy as it sounds,” Harry said, “the only times I feel truly alive are when I’m either locked in my water torture cell – or doing some other death-defying stunt – or when I’m chasing after killers with the two of you. There’s something terribly morbid about that, isn’t there? The only times I feel alive are both associated with death somehow.”

Harry shook his head, bringing his mind back to the topic at hand. “I just need you two. And I don’t think I really realized that until right this minute exactly how important you are to me. I think I told myself getting back to work was what a grown, self-assured man like me would do – just put it all behind him and move on. I sort of believed that for a while too. Up until I saw you get shot, and…everything just seemed to fall out from underneath me again. I felt like I was standing on melting ice with nowhere left to stand.”

Those pesky tears were back, burning at Harry’s eyes and contorting his face into an expression of internal pain. “You don’t know what it did to me to see you lying on the floor with a bullet hole in your stomach,” Harry confessed, his voice shaking with every word. “I really thought you were going to die then and there. I wondered if they would even get you to the hospital in time, and then…what would I do? What would I do with one of my last two remaining anchors gone?”

Harry grasped Doyle’s hand even more firmly in between his, bringing it up under his chin. He rested his chin on top of Doyle’s clammy hand, desperately wishing that it didn’t quite feel like that of a dead person. “That’s what you are, you know,” Harry whispered. “You’re an anchor to me. I would be absolutely devastated, absolutely lost if something happened to you.

“I’d still have Adelaide, but…things are different with her,” Harry said. “I’m sure you know that. There’s a big difference between romantic love and…best friend love.” Harry almost wasn’t aware of what he had said until it came out. He wasn’t intending to throw about words like ‘love’ and ‘best friend’. He drew in a sharp breath, letting those things hang in the air between them for a few moments.

When Harry got over his initial shock and embarrassment, he said, “God, I need you, Arthur. Everything I’ve just told you is true. So if you can hear anything at all of what I’m saying…fight, damn it. Don’t let something like this take away one of the most brilliant men I’ve ever had the fortunate experience of coming across.” Harry frowned in thought, then added, “Except where the supernatural is concerned, but I think we’re all allowed one mistake, aren’t we?

“And even if you don’t want to do it for me, because I know I’m a pain in the ass,” Harry added, “then do it for your children. They don’t deserve this. They don’t deserve to go through the pain of losing their father so soon after nearly losing their mother. And for God’s sakes, don’t make poor Adelaide feel any worse than she already does. She’s out there in the waiting room blaming herself for not doing more to protect you. Even though I already told her that you’re a grown man and can take care of yourself, she feels horrible for letting us come along with her to the hotel at all. If you were to die now too, she’d be just as devastated as I would be. She shot her husband to save you. Although the bastard deserved it, don’t make that be in vain. That alone speaks volumes about how much she cares about you, and I can’t imagine how she’d feel if none of that did any good.

“We need you, Arthur,” Harry concluded. “I don’t know if you ever realized just how important you are to so many people, but you are. You mean the world to us, so come back to us, okay? Don’t leave us to fight against this big scary world by ourselves, because I’m not quite sure we can.”

Harry paused for a very long time, letting his words sink in. He hoped against hope that Doyle would be able to hear him and understand him, that it just might some sort of difference to his recovery. Harry wasn’t sure that it could, but it couldn’t hurt, could it? But then something else entirely occurred to Harry. If Doyle _could_ hear him, then there was a matter that Harry needed to settle with him before they went any further. The next time Harry spoke, he leaned in towards Doyle, his voice barely above a whisper.

“But if you ever tell anyone I ever said any of that to you-“ Harry stopped, as if suddenly realizing what he was going. He looked at Doyle’s hand clasped tightly in his and then quickly let it go, almost as if he had been burned by it. Allowing Doyle’s hand to drop back down onto his stomach, Harry finally went on, “Or if you ever tell anyone I held your hand for that matter, I will deny it emphatically, and I will never…buy a book of yours ever again. Let’s just get that straight right now, Man of the Match.”

_To be continued…_


	3. Heart

When Houdini returned to the waiting room, he found Adelaide pacing the floor just as he had done not so very long ago. As soon as she heard the door to the emergency ward open, she turned to face him, her eyes wide and the corners of her mouth pulled down.

“I was beginning to get worried,” she said. She approached him, wringing her hands in trepidation. “You were in there for such a long time. I was starting to think something had happened.”

“No,” Harry said immediately, suddenly feeling bad for monopolizing so much of the time with Doyle. “Nothing happened. I just…didn’t want to leave him,” he admitted, hanging his head.

“It’s fine,” Adelaide replied. “I know you’re worried about him and…we’re hardly going anywhere. Take as much time as you need.”

“Don’t you…” Harry began, but then he paused. He wasn’t sure if it was the appropriate time to ask, but Harry was hardly one to begin censoring himself now. “You’ve already been gone from Scotland Yard for such a long time. I know you’re concerned about Doyle, but how much longer are you planning to stay here? Don’t you need to get back?”

“If I am going back,” Adelaide responded, turning to approach the windows.

Harry frowned, taking a few steps across the room and coming up behind her. He shoved his hands deep in his pockets. “What do you mean?”

“Part of the reason I became a cop,” Adelaide reminded him, looking back over her shoulder at him, “was to find out what had happened to Benjamin. You know that. Now that I have my answer…what’s the point?”

Harry tried not to let it show that it almost felt like the entire floor had given out from under him. Harry had come to rely on their little detective team so much, it nearly made him feel crazy to think about it not continuing. Things were absolutely changing too much, too fast. First Doyle ends up in the hospital with a bullet wound, his entire life hanging on the line. Now, Adelaide wasn’t even sure that she would continue with her police career.

The changes that that alone would mean were almost too much to think about. Even if Doyle did pull through, there was no way they could continue their crime-solving without her. It was only because of her in the first place that Merring let them become involved in police work at all. The chief inspector was already becoming fed up with the meddling as it was. Without Adelaide, Houdini and Doyle taking it upon themselves to put their noses in official police business would never fly. Even if they were better at solving the crimes than the police were.

Harry needed this – needed their team – more than he could put into words right now. Then again, he couldn’t let his reasons for wanting Adelaide to remain a cop seem selfish. Far be it from him to try and convince her to stay in a career path that wasn’t right for her. The thing was, he did think it was right for her. Very much so.

“The point is,” Harry said quietly, “that you liked what you were doing. Any fool could see that. You can pretend all you like, but it was clear every time you found a new lead, every time we figured out who did it. Are you saying you wouldn’t miss that – the thrill of the chase? Are you saying you could leave it all behind and let those criminals get away? Because God knows no one else at Scotland Yard knows what the hell is going on. And let’s not forget,” Harry reminded her next, “how long and hard you fought to even become a cop in the first place. How much work, how many hours you had to put in before they even felt confident enough to take a chance on you. You would throw that all away?”

Adelaide glanced at him briefly before turning back to the window. She appeared caught off guard and didn’t seem to have a response for him right away. After a moment of silence, she finally shook her head and said, “I don’t know. But that hardly matters right now, does it? We have a lot more serious things to think about right now, because I’m not leaving the States until we at least know he’s stable.” Turning to face him, Adelaide asked, “How is he?”

Harry shook his head, putting up his hands. “He’s still unconscious, although.-“ Harry shut his mouth quickly, thinking better of what he had almost told Adelaide. “He looks horrid,” Harry continued on quickly before she could question it. “He’s pale as a sheet and looks so weak.”

“And I’m sure he’d be so happy to hear you say that,” Adelaide chimed in, desperately trying to lighten the mood. It didn’t work.

“I wish he _could_ hear me say that,” Harry said wistfully. “I’d tease him about it all he could stand and then some. I’d hound him about it until he was chasing me around his room with his pillow to try and shut me up. Shutting me up is a pretty big task after all, you know.”

“Tell me about it,” Adelaide agreed. “But…I’d like to go and see him for a while,” she said, glancing past Houdini to the emergency room door. “As horrid as he looks.”

“Go,” Harry said, stepping aside to allow her to pass and gesturing towards the door. “I’ll be right out here. I’m not going anywhere.”

~~~~~~~~~~

It was nearly an hour later when the door the emergency ward opened again to reveal Adelaide rejoining him. Had Harry really been in there just as long? He suddenly felt bad for leaving Adelaide out here all by herself, because Harry felt like he was going crazy with only the four walls and the view of the parking lot to look at.

Harry immediately got up from his seat where had had forced himself to sit down for a while. He could only pace the floor for so long. “Any change?”

Adelaide shook her head sadly. “Unfortunately, no. He’s still unconscious and…he still looks horrid, I’m afraid.”

“I wish he’d at least wake up!” Harry muttered in frustration, clenching his hands into fists. “I don’t think I’d feel quite so bad if we could at least talk to him and get a response. I hate seeing him lie there motionless.”

“I know,” Adelaide agreed. “It feels wrong. Even though he spends hours behind a desk, just seeing him _lying_ there…” She trailed off before changing the subject. “But since there hasn’t been any change for a while, perhaps we should go back to the hotel, get something to eat-“

“Are you mad?” Harry cut her off, hoisting himself off the chair. “That’s where Doyle got shot. It’ll be a cold day in hell before I ever set foot in the Kind Edward Hotel again. Just thinking about it makes me feel sick.” He threw back the sides of his suit jacket, placed his hands on his hips, and stared off in the other direction.

Adelaide paused and swallowed hard before she replied. “You’re right. That’s also where Benjamin…” She stopped, not needing to say the words. “What was I thinking? But we don’t have to go back there. It’s New York. There are plenty of hotels.”

Harry raised his left index finger, pointing at the door to the emergency ward. “It doesn’t matter, because I’m not leaving until I know he’s okay.”

“Harry…”

“I’m not leaving him,” Harry repeated firmly.

“You heard the doctor,” Adelaide said. “There’s nothing more we can do. It’s all up to him now-“

“And don’t you think he might fight a little harder if he knew I was here?” Harry asked. “If I left and something happened to him while I was gone, I’d never be able to forgive myself. Just like I wasn’t there for my mother when she-“ he broke off, sucking in a sharp breath of air.

“You can’t possibly-“

“I can and I do,” Harry interrupted. “Maybe if I was there, I could have done something for my mother. I might have been able to get her to the hospital before it was too late.”

“Doyle’s already at the hospital,” Adelaide pointed out.

“I’m not leaving,” Harry said again. “I told you, maybe he’ll fight harder if he knows I’m here for him.” He laughed, but it was a strange, awkward sound – something between a sob and a chuckle. “I can at least bother him enough that he’ll _want_ to get up and murder me. I’m good at that.”

This brought the tiniest smile to Adelaide’s lips, and that was when she realized that she was fighting a losing battle. There was absolutely no way she was going to get Houdini out of here short of knocking him out and dragging him. When he decided on something, it was nearly impossible to change his mind or to convince him that he was wrong. She knew that from personal experience.

Nodding, Adelaide finally gave in. “All right. You’re not leaving. But…would you at least come and get something to eat with me?”

It was so very ironic. If Doyle’s life wasn’t on the line, Harry would have given a limb to hear Adelaide ask him that. As it was, as much as Harry wanted to take her up on her offer, Doyle’s well-being was still more important. Harry could just imagine the smug look on Doyle’s face if he knew that – that Harry was willing to pass up a dinner invitation from Adelaide in order to stay by Doyle’s side.

Harry raised an eyebrow at her. “What did I just say?”

“Harry,” Adelaide said, “we haven’t had anything to eat since breakfast this morning. It’s dinnertime now, and you must be starving.”

Harry scrunched up his face in disgust, turning back to face the windows. “I actually haven’t had much of an appetite since I saw Doyle collapse and blood pooling on the front of his waistcoat.”

Adelaide came up behind Harry, placing a hand on his back. He almost had the urge to shake it off, but he didn’t, and he didn’t know why. It still felt oddly uncomfortable – her touch – but at the same time, he wanted it. He needed it. He craved it. As uneasy as it made him feel, he also found a strange sort of comfort in it.

And it was official, Harry decided. He was going crazy. He didn’t know what he wanted anymore or why. He was seeing and hearing things that couldn’t possibly be real. Now that he didn’t know where his life might lead now – if he would even have Doyle and Adelaide anymore at all – he really wondered if he just might be on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

“Just a little something?” Adelaide tried. “It doesn’t have to be much. Perhaps just some soup and tea to help settle your stomach? It wouldn’t do Doyle any good if we made ourselves sick in the process. We have to keep out strength up if we’re going to be any help to him.”

Harry shook his head defiantly, and Adelaide wondered if anything short of heaven and hell could change the man’s mind about anything.

“I don’t want to leave,” Harry said. “At least not until I know he’s going to be okay. I can’t.”

Adelaide took a deep breath and let it out slowly, trying to calm herself from the frustration she was currently feeling. “Will you at least eat if I bring you something?” she tried next. “You have to eat.”

Harry let out a soft breath. Looking back over his shoulder at Adelaide, he said, “You’re just like my mother used to be, you know that?”

“I’ll take that as a compliment,” Adelaide said. “But is that a yes?”

Harry sighed heavily before he gave in. “Fine. I don’t know how much I’ll be able to eat exactly, but I’ll try.”

“Good,” Adelaide. “I’ll be back in a little while.” She turned to leave, but she didn’t get very far.

“Here,” Harry called to her. He reached into the inside pocket of his jacket, pulling out the wad of money that he always had with him. Removing his money clip, he pulled a few bills away from the rest and held them out to her.

“I don’t need the money,” Adelaide protested. “I told you, that was one thing Benjamin did leave me. You can’t exactly take your money with you when you fake your own death. That would be a bit of a giveaway.”

“Take it,” Harry insisted, beginning to sound a bit desperate. “ _Please_. There’s not a lot I can do to help Doyle, but…I just want to feel like I’m doing _something_. That I’m helping in some way.” Harry growled in frustration. “I take control of situations, okay? It’s what I do. There’s absolutely nothing I can do here to make me feel like I’m in control, but I have to do something at least a little bit helpful and constructive. So please, humor me a little bit, would you?”

Adelaide’s expression softened and then she smiled a bit. She stepped forward, reaching out her hand with every intention of taking the money and then going on her way. But that wasn’t what she ended up doing. As soon as she touched Harry’s hand, she stopped. Her hand tightened slightly around his, the money all but forgotten in between their fingers.

Harry’s thumb instinctively moved out from under her grasp to rest on top of her index finger. Harry’s mouth opened in a silent sigh of contentment, but the expression on his face was one of pain. He wanted nothing more than to take her in his arms, to cling to her with everything he had left in him until this entire nightmare was over. She might be all he had left, and he wanted to hold on to her with all his might, like he would never let her go. Like he would never let something bad happen to her too.

But Harry had promised her that that would never happen again. He had kissed her and it had been wrong. He couldn’t do this. He wouldn’t do anything to push her away, because he had already decided that he’d rather have her as a friend than not have her at all. She had made it quite clear that that kiss had not been okay, and she had forgiven him for his moment of weakness. So why was she still holding on to his hand like she didn’t want to let go either?

Harry was waiting for her to take the money and go, but she made no such effort to do so. She kept clinging to his hand, staring at him with an expression that he couldn’t quite place. When he looked harder, however, he decided that it had to be concern over Doyle, didn’t it? She appeared slightly pained and a bit sad, so he couldn’t think of any other possible explanation. It was only fear about Doyle’s well-being, and she was desperately searching for the same kind of support that he wanted right now. Nothing more.

It quickly became too much for Harry to keep up the physical contact with her, too painful, so he turned his hand over, taking hers with it. He pushed the money into her palm and pulled his hand out of her grasp.

“Just soup and tea, okay?” Harry asked in an effort to break the tension that had settled between them. “I don’t think I could stomach much more than that.”

Adelaide didn’t respond at first, but then she gave one single curt nod. “I won’t be long,” she said before turning on her heel and bustling out of the room.

Pressing a hand over his eyes, Harry swore under his breath. Why had he ever kissed Adelaide in the first place? It was only making things between them now much more complicated than they had a right to be. Why couldn’t he just maintain better control of his urges? Then they wouldn’t be in this terribly uncomfortable position when all they really had a right to worry about was Doyle’s life.

Harry desperately began to wish that he could talk to Doyle about all of this. Harry hadn’t even told him about the kiss he had shared with Adelaide in the first place, and out of respect for Adelaide, Harry chose to keep it that way. But now, when things felt like such a shambles between them, a part of Harry wanted nothing more than to confide in someone. His best friend.

Although if Doyle was a smart man – which he was – then he already knew that something had happened between the two of them. Doyle had walked in on Harry and Adelaide right after their kiss, and he’d had that knowing twinkle in his eyes even then. But Doyle was nothing if not discreet, and Harry knew he would never bring the subject up on his own. Sometimes, just sometimes, Harry wished that Doyle could be a little more outspoken like he was, and then they wouldn’t have these terrific secrets between them.

But Doyle wasn’t here. He was lying in a hospital bed unconscious, and Harry had absolutely no one he could confide in about this. It was a horrible, almost strangling and suffocating feeling. Harry felt like he could scream with the intensity of it all, but he couldn’t even do that. Not in a hospital, and as Harry had already made quite clear to Adelaide, he wouldn’t be leaving any time soon. Not until he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that Doyle was going to be okay, which was most probably going to be a very long time. But Harry knew all about endurance, and he was willing to stay there for as long as it took.

~~~~~~~~~~

There was a small table and chairs in the corner of the waiting room where Harry and Adelaide shared an almost completely silent and awkward dinner. At least Adelaide had been right about one thing, however – Harry had turned out to be much hungrier than he thought he was. As soon as the warm soup hit his stomach, it seemed to open up and begin growling for more. The brick that had been present there for the last ten hours suddenly felt like it was dissipating, and Harry didn’t feel quite so sick anymore.

After he devoured his soup – which earned a knowing smirk from Adelaide – Harry settled back into his chair with his cup of tea. He hoped that like the soup had calmed his stomach a bit, the tea might help to sooth his jangled nerves, but Harry didn’t think that would happen until he knew Doyle was going to be okay.

As the sun began to sink towards the horizon, Adelaide decided to leave. She had gotten another hotel and wanted to get back to her room before it got completely dark out. A part of Harry wanted to go with her to make sure she made it there safely, but he knew she wouldn’t be keen on that idea. She was more than capable of taking care of herself as she always told him and Doyle, and Harry didn’t want to do anything to rock the boat any more than he already had that evening. Besides, Harry couldn’t leave Doyle.

A nurse was kind enough to bring Harry a blanket, and he tried to get as comfortable as he could in the waiting room. The chairs were stiff and hard, and there was nowhere for him to lie down, however, so comfortable wasn’t really a possibility. Pulling off his jacket, Harry folded it in half and placed it against the back of a chair, forming a sort of makeshift cushion. Then he pulled up a chair to rest his feet on, and pulling the blanket around himself, tried to lean back as much as he could in the chair he was sitting on. It was going to hurt in the morning, but Harry was no stranger to pain, and this would just be more of the same. Something he would put up with in the interest of staying close to Doyle.

Harry tried to sleep, but he couldn’t. Every time he closed his eyes, he only saw Doyle getting shot over and over again, like someone had pasted moving pictures behind his eyelids. Doyle kept collapsing back against the railing, that ugly pool of blood spreading out on his nice clean waistcoat. Speaking of which, Harry had spent a pretty penny on that suit, and he intended to remind Doyle of that once he woke up.

In the end, Harry settled on simply staring down at the nice soft blue blanket he had pulled around him. Anything was better than the images that plagued his vision when he closed his eyes, and he was hoping that sleep would eventually come to claim him anyway.

The darker it got outside, however, the more uncomfortable Harry became. He thought it was because of the blackness that began pressing against the large windows that took up the entire wall. At least before, he could use the windows as a distraction, staring out at the parking lot to see the horses, and buggies, and cars coming and going. But now, it was becoming so dark outside, it almost felt like a wall closing in on him rather than windows. Harry wasn’t claustrophobic and darkness in and of itself didn’t bother him, so he wasn’t quite sure why this was making him so uncomfortable. He supposed it was just because he didn’t have much else to look at except the walls, and chairs, and the blanket covering him, and the doors of the waiting room. There were a few oil-burning streetlamps near the entrance to the parking lot outside, but hardly enough to make out much of anything. It was just Harry with his thoughts.

Every little noise that Harry heard made him jump. Being in a hospital, of course, the loud and random noises were nearly constant throughout the night. Every little time he heard the slightest stir of moment, Harry would sit up straight in his chair, looking around for the source of the noise. He was almost expecting the doctor to come out into the waiting area to deliver some horrible news about Doyle. But no one came.

Harry supposed that no news was good news, but at the same time, he began to wonder if anyone would tell him if anything bad did happen. They would tell him eventually, certainly, but Harry was worried that it would come much too late to do anything to help Doyle. Harry wasn’t sure what he could possibly do to help anyway, but he seemed to have this crazy idea that if Doyle was on his death bed, Harry might be able to do _something_. He’d be able to tell Doyle to fight, just as he had before. He’d be able to drive Doyle so absolutely crazy with his wit and banter that Doyle wouldn’t be able to do anything but get up and tell him to shut the hell up already. Just _something_. That wasn’t completely crazy, was it?

So Houdini took to watching the door to the emergency ward closely, looking for any sign of movement beyond. There was a window conveniently set into the door. The glass itself was frosted, yes, but Harry could still make out movement and shadow behind it. Every time the slightest noise roused Harry from his rest, he would jump up, eyeing the window in the door for any hint that the staff might be springing into action. When still nothing happened, Harry would try and make himself comfortable again and eventually, he did fall into a fitful doze.

Harry wasn’t sleeping though. Not really. It was the place in between asleep and awake when one can still hear things going on around them, but they’re still not fully conscious or aware of what’s happening either. Harry hated that feeling. It reminded him of being sick when he’d be much too uncomfortable to fall into a deep sleep, but he’d manage to doze off here and there out of pure exhaustion. When Doyle’s life was on the line, however, Harry would put up with it and so much more.

Doyle was worth it. Harry only hoped that he’d have the opportunity to tell Doyle that eventually. That Doyle wouldn’t slip away alone, not knowing how Harry felt. Perhaps that thought was bothering Harry more than anything – that Doyle might die alone just like his mother had. At least Harry knew that his mother was aware of just how much he loved her. He never failed to tell her and to try and make her feel special every single day that he was able. Harry was only sorry that she had died in that hotel room all by herself, with absolutely no family or friends around her to speak of.

Doyle tried to tell him that it was probably for the best. She had gone quietly and peacefully, probably in her sleep with no conscious thought of what was happening. Others, Doyle said, were not so lucky.

But Harry didn’t want Doyle to die alone. Moreover, he didn’t want Doyle to die not knowing how Harry felt. The minute Harry heard the least bit of commotion going on in the emergency ward, he was going to go barging in to find out what was happening. If it was indeed Doyle that was losing the battle, Harry was going to go and be with him. Harry knew that the doctors probably wouldn’t approve of that – they’d want him to leave so that they’d have the room to work – but Harry didn’t care. If Doyle’s condition worsened, Harry was going to plant himself on the edge of Doyle’s bed, and come hell or high water, he wasn’t going to move. He was going to hold Doyle’s hand and repeat over and over again that Doyle was his best friend. Harry wanted that to be the last thought on Doyle’s mind – if at all possible – when he left this world.

Harry wasn’t going to be left with the same guilt he endured every single day over his mother. He wouldn’t. At least with Doyle, he had a little bit of a chance to try and make things right with the man.

Harry only hoped it wouldn’t come to that. He felt like Doyle had so much more left to do, so much more left to accomplish. Despite Doyle’s best efforts to the contrary, Harry had a very sneaking suspicion that he wouldn’t let Sherlock Holmes stay dead. Harry kept imagining the reaction of Doyle’s fans if the consulting detective were to return, and Harry couldn’t quite let go of that thought. Doyle still had more Holmes stories to write, Harry was sure of it.

And not just that, but Doyle had a family to continue to care for. He couldn’t leave them behind yet, not so soon. Not when his children were still so young. Harry was a grown man and losing his mother was slowly but surely killing him. He couldn’t imagine what Mary and Kingsley would go through without their father. Doyle had to be there for them. He had to be there to give his daughter away at her wedding. To see his son become an author like he kept claiming he would (and not a magician, of course). Doyle had to be there to see his grandchildren come into this world and grow.

It just wasn’t right. It wasn’t fair that Doyle might have to miss out on all of that because of Benjamin’s ridiculous schemes. Harry thought that it was probably a good thing that Adelaide had ended up killing Benjamin. If she hadn’t, Harry thought he just might be seeking Benjamin out right now in order to pay him back for what he had done to Doyle.

Eventually, Harry’s through began to grow muddled. He thought he must have fully dozed off, but he wasn’t quite sure. All he knew was that he heard those awful hospital noises again, which stirred him awake. He felt drowsier than he had before, so he simply turned his head to the left, not getting up from his chair. He eyed the emergency ward door through his current veil of sleepiness.

That was when he saw it. For the first time all night, Harry saw movement coming from behind the door. This caused Harry to jump straight up into the air, suddenly feeling more awake than he ever had in his entire life. He wasn’t sure that this activity had anything at all to do with Doyle – there were other patients in the ward, after all – but he wasn’t taking any chances. The blanket that he’d pulled around himself fell to his feet. Harry jumped over it, launching himself at the door to the emergency ward and wrenching it wide open.

Harry looked wildly back and forth, his eyes going over the flurry of activity and trying desperately to make sense out of what he was seeing. His sleep-fogged eyes, however, didn’t seem to want to register anything. All he could see at first were blurs and colors and movement. Harry took a moment to rub at his eyes harshly, desperately trying to get them to focus.

Harry then stared down the hall to his right, where Doyle’s room was located. His was the very last door down on the left, and Harry suddenly knew that that was indeed where the commotion was coming from. A doctor exited this room, shouting some sort of orders down towards the other end of the hall. Harry couldn’t wrap his mind around what was being said. It was probably a bunch of medical jargon that he wouldn’t understand anyway, but Harry’s heart was pounding much too loudly in his ears for him to make sense out of anything.

It reminded Harry of being locked into his water torture cell. The water would essentially cut off his sense of hearing and obscure his field of vision; he’d be left with nothing but a bunch of garbled yells from the people in the audience and swirls of colors and lights. Nothing made sense to him; it was just chaos. Then and now.

There were also nurses coming and going from the room, some of them shouting orders as well while others carried supplies back and forth. It was a sea of people, one which Harry readily launched himself into. He carefully made his way in between the doctors and nurses, closing in on the door to Doyle’s room. That was, until someone grabbed a hold of his arm.

Harry barely even noticed it. In fact, he tried to shake it off and continue his movement across the floor. But the hand held on even tighter.

“Mister Houdini-“

Harry gave his arm a violent shake again, but to no avail. “He’s my friend! I need to be in there with him!”

Harry finally turned around to see who the offending hand belonged to. It was one of the nurses he had seen bustling about the ward before.

“Mister Houdini,” the nurse said again, “you can’t be in there. They need all the room they can to work. You’d just be in the way.”

“In the way,” Harry repeated, his tone scoffing. “Right. I’m his friend,” he said again, his voice softer this time. “There’s always room for one’s friends.”

“I told you, they need the room to work,” the nurse said again. “You can see him once they get him stabilized again.”

“But…” Harry began, but then he trailed off again. His gaze went from the nurse and then back down the hall towards Doyle’s room. Harry was only about fifteen feet away, but at the angle he was standing, he couldn’t quite see into the room itself. Perhaps that was a good thing. A part of Harry wanted to know what was going on with Doyle, but then a part of him didn’t. Harry was almost terrified of what he might see inside the room. Was Doyle bleeding again? Had his stitches come loose? Was there blood all over the bed and his sheets?

That was what Harry kept fearing the most – that Doyle would keep bleeding until he had nothing else left to bleed. The thought made Harry feel sick again, and he partially wanted to run in there, doctors and nurses be damned. Harry would press his hand over Doyle’s bullet wound and hold it until the bleeding stopped. Harry knew that that was probably the most insane idea he’d had yet. He knew nothing about medicine, but he knew enough to know that wounds didn’t work that way. And as the nurse had said, he’d just be impeding the work of the staff anyway.

“What happened?” Harry asked, his voice a whisper. He still wasn’t so sure he wanted to know, not really, but at the same time, he couldn’t stop himself from asking.

“His heartbeat became extremely weak,” the nurse said, “due to the blood loss he suffered. They’re trying to get it back up.”

Harry let out a long and ragged breath. He almost felt like crying again, but he wouldn’t. Not there. Not in front of half of the emergency ward’s staff anyway. Despite what the nurse had said, Harry at least wanted to see Doyle, to know he was still fighting. He had to see him.

Harry began inching down the hall, closer to Doyle’s room, dragging the nurse along behind him.

“Mister Houdini-“ the nurse tried again, her grip on his arm growing tighter.

“I just want to see him,” Harry said a bit desperately. “Please.” He took a few more steps, and the nurse let him go, perhaps convinced by the distressed tone of his voice.

Harry finally progressed down the hall far enough to see around the frame of the doorway. At first, he only saw the nurses and doctors, hurrying about Doyle’s bed and speaking in rapid tones. Harry stood his ground and wished that one of them would move so that he could see his friend.

When that did happen, however, Harry suddenly wished for them to move back into place so he couldn’t see the horrible state that Doyle was now in. Harry thought Doyle had looked bad before, but it was nothing compared to what he looked like now. Doyle was even paler than Harry remembered. His color seemed even weaker yet than his sheets, the whiteness of the cotton emphasizing just how much blood the man had lost. His complexion was almost grey, and it made Harry think of ghosts, and skeletons, and all sorts of dead things. This inevitably made him think about being trapped in that cemetery, of being buried alive and having to try and claw his way out through the ground that held nothing but death.

This made Harry shiver, and he tried to block those thoughts from his mind, but still, there they were. Just as the images of Doyle being shot over and over had seem pasted over his eyes out in the waiting room. Would Harry be burying Doyle in that same ground very soon? Would he be saying goodbye to one of the last people he had left in this world, just mere weeks after he had said his final farewell to his mother?

Harry simply couldn’t accept this, damn it. There was that ambition of his, coming to life inside of him again, making him go and get what he wanted. Except now what could he do except let Doyle know that he was there? He knew he wouldn’t manage to even get to the doorway to Doyle’s room before the staff would be all over him, so he did the only other thing he could think of.

“Fight this, Doyle!” Harry began shouting at the top of his lungs. He felt the nurse tightening her grip around his arm again, and he knew the staff wouldn’t allow this to go on for very long, so Harry tried to make it fast. “Don’t make me say goodbye to you too! I’m right outside your room and I’m not leaving until I know you’re okay! I’m here, okay?”

“Mister Houdini-“

“I’m not putting you in the ground too!” Harry carried on as if he hadn’t even heard the nurse speak. “Do you hear me, Doc?! Don’t you make me do it! Don’t make me tell your children that you died over here, thousands of miles away from them! They’re waiting for you to come home and you can’t let them down! You’re all they have left now, and you can’t leave them alone! I know you can’t!” Harry’s voice finally seemed to hit a snag, because his next words were nearly swallowed up in a sob. “I know you’re not going to leave me alone.”

Harry wasn’t even sure if Doyle would have heard those last words or not, but he wasn’t quite sure if he had it in him to say anything further. He thought if he opened his mouth one more time, he just might begin sobbing out loud, and he wasn’t about to let that happen. At least, not where so many people could see him.

Besides, it appeared as if the staff had had enough of his disruptions. Many of them had stopped to stare at him and several of them were shushing him and motioning at him to be quiet. This only made Harry wish that Doyle was there to shut him up. Doyle was good at that. Better than probably anyone else. Except maybe Adelaide. He wasn’t sure.

“Mister Houdini!” the nurse said again, her tone much louder and firmer this time. “We can’t have you in here if you’re going to be shouting! You’re disrupting the patients!”

“Good,” Harry said, turning back to face the nurse. He grabbed at the bottom hem of his waistcoat, which had become rumpled and wrinkled in his brief struggle with the nurse. “They need to be disturbed a little.”

Trying to maintain the last shred of dignity he had, he turned on his heel and quickly retreated for the door to the waiting room, his head still held high. Pretending he hadn’t just completely lost his sense of decorum and screamed at the top of his lungs in the middle of a hospital emergency ward was surprisingly easy. Anyway, where Doyle was concerned, it was more than worth it, and Harry would do it a million times over if he had to. Even if it meant sacrificing his public image a little.

When Harry returned to the waiting room, he resumed the pacing he had done when he’d first arrived. Back and forth, first to the bank of windows, and then back along the row of chairs towards the emergency room door. Again, he found himself staring at the door, waiting and hoping for it to open, but it remained still. The chaos was still going on behind the door, however – doctors and nurses running back and forth from Doyle’s room and yelling orders to each other.

Sighing, Harry turned back to the blackness of the windows that almost seemed to be pressing in on him. Harry wondered if he should go and find a phone so that he could call Adelaide at the hotel and let her know what was happening. But he really wasn’t keen on getting any farther away from Doyle than he already was.

Besides, it was very late. Harry retrieved his trusty pocket watch from his waistcoat to see that it was nearly two o’clock in the morning. Adelaide would probably – hopefully – be asleep by now. He wasn’t sure if she’d be sleeping any better than he was, but he didn’t want to disturb her if she was. Not to mention, there wasn’t much she could do now anyway, except worry. Wouldn’t it be better to wait until a less ridiculous hour and let her know then when he’d probably have more information about Doyle’s condition?

So here was Harry again, alone and with that very familiar sense of dread that was growing to consume his stomach once more. He wondered if this was what his life would eventually become – nothing but loneliness and the knowledge that he’d lost or driven away anyone that had ever been close to him. That feeling would hang over him like a dark cloud, just like it was now, but worse.

Harry couldn’t do this. He couldn’t. He couldn’t put one more person in the ground, least of all his best friend.

Feeling defeated, Harry trudged over to the chair where he’d dozed off before. The discarded blanket was still pooled on the floor at his feet. He stepped over this, dropping heavily into the chair. He placed his elbows on his knees and slumped over, burying his head in his hands and threading his fingers through his dark curls.

The sobs that he had fought to contain before were suddenly rising up inside him, and this time, he did nothing to stop them. He sat there and he cried, his back heaving violently from the force of it all. He suddenly wasn’t worried that someone would walk in and catch him – the great Harry Houdini – crying. When it was all said and done, did that really matter anyway – if people saw him crying? All that mattered was Doyle, and Harry was more terrified than ever that he had seen his last days with his friend.

At long last, he let the tears fall freely, because he just didn’t care anymore.

_To be continued…_


	4. Awake

Harry didn’t know how long he sat there, his elbows on his knees and his head buried in his hands. It could have been hours, but it was most probably closer to about thirty minutes. He wasn’t quite sure, except that time seemed to drag on for an inexplicably long time. It couldn’t have been that long though, because it was still dark outside the windows. If hours had passed, it would be nearing dawn and the sun would be coming up by now.

At long last, after what seemed like forever, the door to the emergency ward finally opened. Harry lifted his head, glancing with tear-swollen eyes at whoever might be entering. His eyes, however, were still too full of tears for him to see anything clearly. Harry took a moment to use his thumb and forefinger to rub at his eyes and then squeeze the bridge of his nose, hoping that this would help to stem the flow of tears.

Harry stood up from his chair, not bothering to try and hide the fact that he had been crying. If people wanted to criticize him for it, if people wanted to make a mockery out of him over it, then so be it. He wasn’t going to pretend anymore that he wasn’t hurting over this, because he was. Doyle was his friend – his _best_ friend – and he wasn’t going to act like this wasn’t affecting him.

He had certainly done enough of that with his mother’s death – pretending – and now, several weeks later, he wasn’t sure it had helped one bit. In a way, it seemed like his mother had just died yesterday. It felt like the big, giant hole that had opened up in his chest when he found his unresponsive mother that night was still there, just as gaping, just as jagged as it had been then. Nothing had changed, and he was growing tired of pretending like everything was okay, because it wasn’t.

Doyle had been very right about something. For a time, Harry almost thought that if he didn’t grieve, then something about it wouldn’t be real. He knew she was gone, yes, but perhaps if he didn’t open the floodgates to begin with, then he would be able to hold off all the pain that went along with it. It had sort of worked for a while, but more and more, he was coming to realize that the pain was still there. It was still hiding somewhere inside him, and the more time that passed, the more he felt parts of it seeping through. The more it seemed to hurt.

There had been that night when Adelaide had come to his room at Falcroft Manor and he had ended up kissing her. Sure, Harry had wanted to do that for ages – still wanted to do it more than anything – but it was really more of a byproduct of his mother’s death than outright desire at that moment. Adelaide had been there, and he had just heard (what he thought was) his mother’s voice on the necrophone. He was in desperate need of some kind of support, and she ended up being there at the right time. It had felt so good to feel something – anything other than pain – and he had grasped onto it. Even Adelaide had seen it for what it was – a weak moment – and had outright forgiven him for it.

If Harry’s mother hadn’t died, and if he hadn’t had his unfortunate run-in with Edison’s ludicrous invention, he never would have had the audacity to take it upon himself to kiss her. He respected her too much for that. If Adelaide wanted to kiss him, then he’d be all for that, of course. But it had to be her decision, and he rather doubted she would ever choose that. She had let him have a pass because of a weak moment, but had made it adamantly clear that she didn’t want it to happen again. ‘Good’, she had said when he told her it wouldn’t, and Harry would respect her wishes.

And then there had been that night when he had been sitting with Walt in his cabin in the Indian village. Harry had essentially broken down and opened up to Walt like he hadn’t done to anyone, not even Adelaide or Doyle. Harry had thought one of his friends would be his first choice, so he didn’t know why he had ended up crying to Walt. Harry supposed it was because he had held it in for so long, and it had simply grown to be enough. He couldn’t hold it in any longer and it had come out at the most inopportune time. It had just been complete coincidence that Walt had been there and not Doyle or Adelaide.

But more and more, Harry was coming to realize that these emotions were going to come out. If he didn’t let them out in their own their own time, then they would come exploding out of him like a canon blast at the most awkward time. So wouldn’t it be best to allow himself to feel everything that was coming up, rather than trying to bottle it all up? He thought so, and it even made him feel a little bit better, allowing himself to cry over Doyle’s condition (and he’d be lying if he said that some of it wasn’t for his mother too). It was freeing in a way.

When Harry was finally able to blink back his tears, he saw that Doctor Steiner was standing before him, the same doctor that had given Harry and Adelaide their last update on Doyle. Harry sniffled, running his hand over his face again. His legs suddenly felt wobbly underneath him, and he was very much regretting his decision to stand up.

Harry was absolutely terrified that he wasn’t going to get anything except awful news. Harry kept imagining that Doyle might have died while he was sitting here, crying over him. Harry was out here all alone, and Doyle had died surrounded by strangers, because they wouldn’t let Harry in to see his best friend on his death bed.

Harry wasn’t quite sure what he would do if that was the news he was about to receive. For a moment, he had an insane of image of himself mowing down the doctor before bursting into the emergency ward. He would probably run into Doyle’s room and scream for the doctors and nurses to do something to help the poor man. Even though Doyle would be lying there lifeless, way past the point of help, just like his mother had.

Doctor Steiner seemed to be watching him closely, as if not quite sure what Harry might do. Did he sense that Harry might suddenly go wild, running through the hospital and shrieking at the top of his lungs? Or was that expression for an entirely different reason? Perhaps the doctor was simply afraid to tell Harry that the worst had happened with Doyle. That there was absolutely nothing else that could be done, because Doyle was gone.

“Mister Houdini,” the doctor finally began, but his tone was slow, reluctant.

Harry decided to cut to the chase and save him the trouble of having to break it to him gently. “He’s gone, isn’t it?” Harry whispered, closing his eyes against the flood of emotions that threatened to overtake him.

The moment of silence before the doctor responded was excruciating. Each second that ticked by felt like eternity, Harry’s stomach seeming to rise higher and higher in his windpipe until it was strangling him.

“No,” finally came the doctor’s response, “not at all. Quite the contrary, in fact.”

Harry opened his eyes, taking the most freeing and soothing gasp of air he thought he’d ever had in his life. Finally being able to breathe again on the numerous occasions he’d escaped from his water torture cell was nothing compared to this. To knowing that Doyle hadn’t left him after all.

“You mean…” Harry began, struggling to find the words. It was like all his senses his escaped him, and he was scrambling to find them all again. “He’s all right?” Harry asked, the urge to cry hitting him all over again, but this time, he ignored it.

Doctor Steiner nodded, taking a few steps across the room and closing the distance between Harry. “It was the oddest thing,” the doctor said. “We were losing him. We gave as much epinephrine as was safe to raise his heart rate, but it was becoming weaker by the second. Nothing we did seemed to have any effect at all. But then that all changed. His breathing steadied, and slowly, his heartbeat increased. It was still dangerously low for a while, but we’ve finally gotten it back in the normal range.”

“So,” Harry said matter-of-factly, “it just took a while for the treatment to work.”

Doctor Steiner tilted his head back and forth, contemplating Harry’s words. “That could be one explanation,” the doctor agreed. He took a few steps past Harry until he reached the bank of windows along one wall. When he turned back to Harry, he said, “Except that no matter how much epinephrine we gave him, it wasn’t having any effect at all. It was becoming a bit worrisome, because patients usually have _some_ sort of response to it, even if it’s minute. The only time it doesn’t work is when it’s already too late.”

Harry blinked at the doctor, not quite sure he understood what he was hearing. “So what are you telling me?” Harry asked. “He was nearly dead?”

“For a while,” Doctor Steiner said, “yes, he was.” He paused for a very long time, letting out a shuddered breath of air. “I suppose I can admit this to you now, considering the worst seems to be over, but I was nearly ready to order my team to stop working and let him go. I couldn’t see what else we could possibly do.”

Harry really didn’t want to know what he’d have done if the doctor had told him that – that he’d let his team stop working and simply allow Doyle to pass away. The idea was sickening to Harry, and he thought he probably would have begun punching the doctor then and there. As it was, though, that wasn’t the case, so Harry tried to let go of the anger he felt building up inside of him at the idea.

“So what changed?” Harry asked, trying desperately to get away from the idea of Doyle dying. That hadn’t happened, and Harry didn’t want to think about it happening. Not now.

“I don’t know,” Doctor Steiner said, but then he got an odd expression on his face. It was caught partially between a smile and a look of disbelief. “But his heartrate finally started going up when you barged into the ward, screaming at the poor man.”

Harry opened his mouth to respond, but no sound came out at first. He took a moment to place his hands on his hips, a rather pleased expression passing over his face. “You have to understand,” Harry said proudly, “I tend to have that effect on him.”

“I rather doubt he could have heard you,” Doctor Steiner said. “He was already unconscious and his blood pressure was dangerously low. I don’t think he was aware of anything that was going on around him.”

Harry tilted his head to the side, considering the doctor’s words. “I wouldn’t be too sure about that. I have a way of getting that man to hear me even when he tries his best to tune me out.”

Without waiting for the doctor’s response, Harry stepped around him, beginning to make his way for the emergency room door. Harry was quite aware that he was probably skating on thin ice; this was a hospital, after all. He couldn’t simply do whatever he wanted to do, but he was getting quite tired of being kept away from Doyle. Especially when it was now apparent that it was only because of him that Doyle wasn’t dead yet. Because Harry wouldn’t let him rest in peace, damn it.

“So, can I see him?” Harry asked, turning back to the doctor briefly. Harry’s tone suggested that this was just a formality.

“Please be aware,” the doctor told him, “he’s still extremely weak. He’s regained consciousness now-“

“He has?!” Harry cut him off, immediately turning and running for the door again. He’d been waiting for this moment for what felt like forever. Doyle was awake, and he was going to be able to properly talk to him again. Not just talk _at_ him while he lay there unresponsive.

“Mister Houdini,” Doctor Steiner called after him, stopping him in his tracks. When Harry faced him again, he said, “I don’t want you to be alarmed if he’s confused and disoriented for a while. I explained to him where he was and what had happened, but he’s lost a lot of blood. We also have him on morphine for the pain, and that can have a negative impact on the mental faculties for a while. He may not know who you are.”

Harry immediately scoffed. “Of course he’ll know who I am. No one can forget me.” Without waiting for an answer, Harry raced for the door before the doctor could stop him again to tell him about inconsequential things.

Doyle was alive and awake and that was all that mattered right now. Sure, he’d still have a lot of recovering to do, but they’d think about that all in good time. Harry just wanted to see his friend and…he wasn’t sure what yet. For a while there, when Doyle was still unconscious and Harry was terrified, he’d had so many things he’d wanted to tell the man. Now that Harry was actually confronted with having a conversation with Doyle again, he wasn’t quite so sure he wanted to go there. Yes, he wanted Doyle to know how he felt, but the thought of actually talking about it embarrassed Harry. Moreover, he thought that it just might embarrass Doyle as well. Maybe Harry would just save that for a better time. One when Doyle wasn’t nearly on his deathbed.

When Harry finally, at long last, stepped into Doyle’s room, it appeared as if Doyle had either fallen asleep or had become unconscious again. Harry wasn’t sure which, but he desperately hoped it wasn’t the latter. Swallowing hard, Harry took a few slow steps across the room, waiting to see if Doyle might see him and react.

When Doyle still didn’t move, Harry quietly asked, “Doc?” His voice came out a croak, one full of emotion and trepidation, but it did the job.

Slowly but surely, Doyle opened his deep brown eyes to look at Harry. A small but very apparent smile curled gradually across his lips. It was an amazing sight to see, one that warmed Harry’s heart. All at once, Harry knew that the man recognized him and that the doctor might just be full of it. A part of Harry simply wanted to run to Doyle and throw his arms around him, but that would definitely embarrass the both of them, so Harry restrained himself.

“Harry,” came Doyle’s voice a moment later. It was rough-sounding, like he hadn’t used it in a while, but it was warm and welcoming all the same.

Placing his hands on his hips again, Harry said, “I told that kooky doctor you’d recognize me. He said you might be disoriented and confused for a while, and he had the audacity to suggest you wouldn’t know who I was. I told him no one could ever forget me.”

Doyle’s smile grew slightly larger. “He obviously doesn’t know anything about you.” His words came out slowly, like Doyle just might be drunk or else heavily drugged, which, Harry supposed, he was.

“Indeed,” Harry agreed smugly. He hesitated before asking his next question, but he really wasn’t sure what else to say. “How are you feeling?”

“Like I’ve just been trampled by a team of horses,” Doyle replied, closing his eyes for a few moments. When he opened them again, he said, “Did we save the president?”

A soft breath of disbelief escaped from Harry, and he thought he could feel the pesky sting of tears in his eyes again. Doyle had nearly died, and here he was, much more concerned about the president than he was about his own well-being. Trying to ignore the rush of emotions that this ignited in Harry, he said, “Yeah. Yeah, we did. He’s fine.”

“How’s Adelaide?”

“She’s fine too,” Harry said, then frowned and reconsidered his words. “Well, as fine as she can be under the circumstances. I meant she’s physically fine, but…I imagine she’ll be reeling from this one for quite a long time.”

Doyle frowned deeply. “What do you mean?”

“How much do you remember about what happened?” Harry asked, Doctor Steiner’s words coming back to him.

Doyle slowly shook his head, a tiny, minute movement. “Not…much. I remember going to the King Edward hotel to save the president, but…not much after that. It all goes blank. The doctor said I was shot, but…he didn’t say how or by whom.”

“It was Benjamin,” Harry supplied, crossing his arms over his chest. “The bastard.”

Doyle blinked at this, not seeming to comprehend what Harry was telling him. But then, all at once, it seemed to dawn on him. “I remember…he had that book of Mark Twain’s in his coat pocket. That was when I knew…that it was him.” Doyle shook his head again, seemingly trying to remember something that wasn’t quite coming to him.

“That must have been when you went after him,” Harry said. “I saw you two get into a struggle up on the balcony, and that was when I knew too. I knew you wouldn’t be doing so to anyone unless it was the assassin. Then I heard the gunshot ring out, and you fell back against the railing, and…” Harry stopped, gasping in a breath of air. “I think that might have been one of the worst feelings in my life – knowing that you might be dead.” Harry hadn’t quite been planning on revealing that much, but he found that he couldn’t quite stop himself either.

“Why, Harry,” Doyle said in disbelief, “I wasn’t aware that you were capable of feeling such human emotions.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Harry replied, feigning annoyance. In reality, however, Harry was smiling, and it was such a wonderful feeling. He and Doyle were already falling back into the same familiar pattern of playful banter, and this reassured Harry that Doyle was still very much himself in there, underneath all the pain and medication.

“But then what happened?” Doyle asked, closing his eyes again for a moment. “That’s when it all goes black for me. Except…I do remember this immense explosion of pain in my stomach. It almost felt like it was being torn apart from the inside out. And then…nothing.”

“I dove for the president,” Harry said, “telling him to get down. Then when he had you out of the way, Benjamin raised his gun for the president.” Harry paused for a very long time, not quite knowing how Doyle would react to the whole story. “We all might have been shot, but then…Adelaide.”

Doyle asked, “What did she do?”

“She shot him,” Harry replied. “Benjamin.”

Doyle’s eyes widened at this. “She shot her own husband?”

“Dead,” Harry confirmed. “And better him than you. Believe me. Adelaide told the police after that it was either him or us, and that was the truth. Like I said, he might have shot us all. He would have killed the president, and then maybe me, and then he might have made sure to finish the job with you. Then who knows how many other people. He was a loose cannon, so she stopped him before he could do anymore damage.”

Doyle’s eyes darted over to the window, at the deep blackness of the sky outside. His eyebrows furrowed at the thought. “I can’t imagine what she must be feeling. She must be in agony.” When Doyle looked at Harry again, he said, “Is she here?”

Harry shook his head before replying. “She went to get a hotel room to try and get some sleep.”

“You should have gone with her,” Doyle told him.

“Believe it or not,” Harry retorted, “being alone in a hotel room with Adelaide is not at the top of my list of priorities right now.”

Doyle rolled his eyes. “Would you get your mind out of the gutter for a second?” Doyle looked Harry up and down before he observed, “You’re tired. Did you get a decent amount of sleep at all, or were you pacing around the waiting room all night?”

Harry opened his mouth, first to attempt to tell Doyle he had gotten some sleep, but then he realized that he couldn’t lie to the man. Not now. Not after nearly losing the best friend he’d had in quite some time. Harry closed his mouth and turned his head to stare at the blackened glass of the windows. Then he felt a familiar rush of emotions when he realized that, once again, Doyle was much more concerned with whether or not Harry had gotten a decent amount of sleep. The man was lying in a hospital bed, recovering from a gunshot wound, and he still couldn’t stop caring about others. Perhaps that was just one of the reasons why Doyle was his best friend.

“I told Adelaide I wasn’t leaving until I knew you were going to be okay,” Harry said, turning to face Doyle once again. “And I haven’t.”

“You’ve been here the entire time?” He sounded a bit shocked.

“Don’t act like it’s been any sort of ridiculous amount of time,” Harry argued. “You were only shot yesterday morning. It hasn’t even been twenty-four hours.”

“And how much longer do you intend on staying here?” Doyle asked next, sounding a bit accusing.

“I told you,” Harry replied firmly, “until I know you’re going to be okay. However long that takes.”

“I’m fine,” Doyle said, trying his best to keep his tone nonchalant.

“Excuse me?” Harry asked as if Doyle just might be crazy. “You’re not fine! You got shot yesterday! Until you get a clean bill of health from the doctors, I’m not leaving you.” Harry crossed his arms over his chest and stared off at the windows again, not caring that he probably looked and sounded like a little child just then.

Doyle didn’t reply right away, and for a brief moment, Harry was hoping that it was because he’d decided for once in his life that Harry was right.

“I just want you take care of yourself,” Doyle finally replied. “It wouldn’t do for both of us to be in the hospital, because we both know you have a habit of ignoring even very blatant warning signs,” he said pointedly.

“Hey,” Harry said, finally turning back to face Doyle, “I’m fine. You have absolutely no reason to worry about me at this moment in time, so don’t. Adelaide even made sure I ate dinner yesterday, so she’s taking good care of me in your absence.” A smile passed over Doyle’s lips then and Harry immediately snapped, “Don’t even say anything.”

Doyle slowly raised a few fingers of one hand in the air in a sign of surrender. “I didn’t.”

Harry nodded, trying desperately to hide the smirk that threatened to claim his own mouth. “But you were going to, you miserable sod.”

Just then, there was a knock at the door. Harry turned to see Doctor Steiner peeking his head around the corner. “I just wanted to make sure that Doctor Doyle wasn’t taxing himself so soon after such a harrowing ordeal,” the doctor said, stepping farther into the room.

“I’m okay,” Doyle said. “Besides, seeing Harry is doing me a world of good right now.”

Harry leaned back on his heels, giving Doctor Steiner a smug smile. At the same time, however, Harry didn’t quite miss the note of exhaustion in Doyle’s voice. Apparently, neither did Doctor Steiner.

“Be that as it may,” Doctor Steiner said, “perhaps you should get some sleep. I’d prefer for you not to have too much excitement right now.”

Harry was about protest, but Doyle must have seen it coming. Harry could almost imagine himself getting into an argument with Steiner over visitation, because Doyle was his friend and he had nearly died. Harry needed and deserved to spend time with him. But Doyle’s next words quelled the situation in time, and Harry was glad. Despite everything that had just happened, it was nice to know that some things were still very much the same.

“I am tired,” Doyle said before Harry could say anything. “I wouldn’t be adverse to the idea of taking a nap.”

Harry threw a furtive glance to Doctor Steiner before he told Doyle, “Okay. But I’ll be right outside in the waiting room if you need anything.” Harry took a few steps closer to Doyle before he added, “If you need anything, all you have to do is say the word.”

Doyle smiled, his eyes drooping closed as he said his next words. “I will.”

Harry left Doyle’s room, his steps considerably lighter than they were the last time he had been there.

_To be continued…_


	5. Best Friend

Harry didn’t end up getting any sleep like he knew Doyle would have wanted. Instead, Harry took to pacing around the hospital waiting room once again. It wasn’t quite that he was stressed out about Doyle’s condition anymore. Of course, he was still concerned, but that large brick of unease and anxiety that had settled in his stomach before finally seemed to have faded. But what Harry was the most anxious about now was telling Adelaide the good news.

Harry wouldn’t call her at the hotel, because he didn’t want to disturb her. Again, if she was getting any sort of rest after the events of the last day, then Harry would let her have that peace. He would simply wait for her to show up in the morning, even if it meant that he didn’t get any sleep himself out of excitement.

Not to mention, there was still a tiny part of Harry that was worried. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he was concerned that if he fell asleep, things might take a turn for the worse. Harry knew that was silly; whether he was awake or not had nothing at all to do with Doyle’s condition. But Harry was terrified of sleeping, terrified that when he woke up, that Doyle would be gone. As long as Harry was awake, as long as he was hoping and thinking about Doyle, then things would be okay. As completely crazy as that sounded, Harry couldn’t quite shake those thoughts from his head long enough for him to relax. So awake he stayed.

More than once, Harry snuck into Doyle’s room. Doyle was sleeping soundly, and Harry didn’t disturb him because he knew he needed his rest, but he stood and watched the man for a while each time. Harry found it soothing and calming to watch Doyle’s chest rising and falling with each steady breath in and out. As long as Harry saw that he kept breathing, then he didn’t have to worry that the worst was happening.

That was until the doctors and nurses kept chasing him out. They insisted that Doyle needed to rest as much as possible and Harry was only going to disturb him. Even though Harry was as quiet as a mouse each time he entered the room and he didn’t see Doyle stir in the least while he was there, the staff seemed to think that his presence was a nuisance. So Harry would once again make his way out into the waiting area. There he would pace around some more until the next time he thought it was safe to sneak back into Doyle’s room.

At long last, the very first vestiges of sunlight finally began to illuminate the sky outside the windows in the waiting room. Harry, for one, was glad. Not only would Adelaide be arriving soon, but he had grown very tired of being chased out of Doyle’s room time after time. Perhaps now that it was dawn, the staff would soon allow Doyle to have some visitors for a while.

When Adelaide did show up a few hours later, she didn’t appear as if she had gotten much more sleep than Harry. Maybe it would have been better after all if she had stayed at the hospital with him. At least then, they would have been able to keep each other company.

Her eyes were red-rimmed and bloodshot, like she had probably been up most of the night crying. On the other hand, maybe it was better that she’d left to go to the hotel after all. Not that Harry was adverse to the idea of comforting her (indeed, the possibilities that it seemed to inspire excited him a little), but she most likely wanted to be in private while she mourned. She had been through so much in the last twenty-four hours, and the last thing she needed was Harry’s brashness at a time like this.

Adelaide’s hair was a bit mussed, like she hadn’t taken as much time to brush it and make it perfect like she usually did. After all that had just happened, hair probably seemed like an afterthought to her. A lot of things felt that way to Harry anyway.

Adelaide was also carrying a large paper sack in her arms. “I stopped off for pastries on the way here,” she said, giving the parcel a slight stir. “I hope you’re not against the idea of an unhealthy breakfast.”

“Under the circumstances, of course not,” Harry said, “but…”

“I know I look a fright,” she said, ignoring Harry’s words as she quickly made her way over to the table in the corner. She set the package down before turning to face Harry once more. “You don’t even need to say it.”

“I would never say…”

Leaning back against the table, Adelaide reached up to brush at some flyaway hairs that were floating around her eyes. “I hardly slept at all and when I did, I had horrid nightmares. Every time I woke up from one, I kept hoping that this entire turn of events would turn out to be nothing but a dream – that I wouldn’t be in a hotel in New York, not knowing what was going on with Arthur. But it turned out this was the nightmare,” she added quietly. Pausing for a very long time, she finally asked, “Is he okay?”

“Addy,” Harry said softly, approaching her. He reached up a hand, grasping the one she held at her face and pulling it away. When he could see her eyes more properly, he still didn’t let go of her hand, and she made no move to pull it away. They stared at each other for a very long time, neither of them moving or taking any initiative to step away from the other.

Harry thought he might have been going insane again, but it was an incredible feeling. It was almost like there was electricity that had sparked up between them. He felt energized standing there with her. The sleeplessness of the last day suddenly seemed to dissolve into nothingness, making him feel like he could go out and take on the world. It was crazy, and he knew that.

Harry didn’t want to break that feeling that had exploded in between the two of them, but on the other hand, Harry didn’t want to leave her hanging about Doyle’s condition either.

“Arthur woke up,” Harry told her.

“He did?” Adelaide asked, new tears springing to life in her eyes. She let out a sob and then she jerked forward slightly. It was almost as if she had wanted to throw herself into Harry’s arms, but then she thought better of it. Instead, she used her free hand (still not pulling her other one out of Harry’s grasp) to wipe at her eyes. “Thank God. I want to see him.”

Harry nodded but then he said, “He’s not completely in the clear yet. He’s still really weak and the doctors kept making me leave so he could get some sleep.” Harry sounded a bit bitter at this.

“You saw him then?”

“Only for a few moments,” Harry said. “The doctors don’t want me to overexcite him.” Harry rolled his eyes like this idea was completely absurd.

Adelaide made a funny sound, somewhere in between a giggle and a sob. “I don’t blame them,” she said, her words sounding a bit tear-clogged. “You could wake the dead.”

A saddened expression passed over Harry’s face at these words, and that was when he finally dropped Adelaide’s hand. “No,” he said, sounding a bit curt. “I can’t. I only wish I could.”

“Oh, Harry,” Adelaide immediately replied, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean-“

“No,” Harry cut her off gently. “I am. It was only an expression. I know.”

“I really am sorry,” Adelaide repeated. “You know I would never say anything like that deliberately. At least not now.”

Harry gave her the biggest and best smile he could. “I know you wouldn’t.” He took a deep breath, running a hand over his face. All at once, he felt extremely exhausted again, like that exhilarating moment between him and Adelaide hadn’t just happened. He suddenly regretted not getting any sleep last night, because he felt like this was going to be another very long day, and it was only just beginning.

The atmosphere in the room had grown terribly uncomfortable again, so in an effort to change the subject, Harry asked, “Do you want to see if they’ll let us visit Doyle now? Or do you want to eat first?”

Secretly, Harry hoped that she’d want to see Doyle first, because he couldn’t imagine sitting there alone with her for God knew how long. Last night’s dinner had already been silent and uncomfortable enough, and Harry didn’t think he could handle that again. Harry couldn’t even think about eating anyway, because it seemed like every time he was alone with Adelaide now, his stomach began doing weird things. He had never felt that way around her before, and he didn’t quite know why he was now.

Perhaps it was simply all of the stress over Doyle and everything else that had happened. To be honest, Harry really had no idea how to comfort Adelaide over the previous day’s events, and he didn’t know if he should. She probably wouldn’t accept him treating her like some delicate flower that might fall apart, but at the same time, he knew she must be hurting. In fact, she must be feeling a lot of conflicting emotions, and Harry was clueless on how to help her. In the end, he decided that if she needed help then she would ask for it, but he wasn’t even sure of that. He wasn’t sure of a lot of things anymore.

Breaking him out of his reverie, Adelaide said, “Let’s go see him first. I’ve been wanting nothing more than to talk to him all night. Breakfast can wait.”

Without even waiting to see if they could find a doctor first, Harry led the way straight to Doyle’s room. If the staff had a problem with it, Harry was sure they wouldn’t waste any time in throwing them out again, but they had the right to see their friend.

Doyle still seemed to be sound asleep, and for a moment, Harry hesitated to disturb him. Adelaide, however, wasted to such time. She immediately made her way over to the bed, reaching out a hand to lie across one of his, which was resting peacefully atop his stomach.

This made Harry smile. It was when Adelaide did things like this – took charge and did what she wanted – that Harry was reminded of why he liked her. She was a lot like him in that way, and that thrilled him.

Adelaide’s touch on his hand roused Doyle from his sleep. He turned his head up towards her, slowly opening his eyes. They seemed unfocused at first, like he had just come out of a deep, drug-induced sleep. It took him a moment before he seemed to realize what was going on, but once he did, he smiled deeply.

“Addy,” he said warmly, groggily.

“How are you feeling?” she asked.

“I told Harry already,” Doyle replied sleepily, “like I’ve been trampled by a team of horses.”

“Do you want us to leave so you can get some more sleep?” Adelaide asked, concern flooding her voice.

“Us?” Doyle repeated. He turned his head farther, trying to see past Adelaide to the door, but he couldn’t quite move his neck enough.

Harry finally moved from his place at the door where he had been watching Adelaide from. He approached Doyle’s bed and said, “I’m here too, Doc. Can’t let our Addy have all the fun.”

Doyle’s smiled widened, and he slowly shook his head in reply to Adelaide’s question. “No,” Doyle replied. “I want you two to stay. It makes me feel better having you here. I’ll tell the doctor that too when he comes and tries to make you leave.”

“I wish you would,” Harry said. “They did nothing but chase me out last night. It got pretty old.” Harry crossed his arms over his chest defiantly.

Doyle raised an eyebrow at him. “And just how many times was that?”

Harry immediately shrugged, realizing he had given too much away. “Once or twice,” he lied. In all honesty, Harry wasn’t even sure how many times had been driven from Doyle’s room. He had lost count after about the third or fourth time.

“Which is what you did instead of getting any sleep yourself,” Doyle commented accusingly.

“So I couldn’t sleep!” Harry exclaimed, waving his arms around for emphasis. “It’s rather hard in this place with all the racket that goes on day in and day out.”

“Which is why I would have rather seen you go to the hotel,” Doyle argued.

“No.”

“Why didn’t you wake me?”

“Because you needed your rest,” Harry told him. “Besides, it made me feel better just being in here.”

Adelaide had been looking back and forth between Doyle and Houdini during their entire exchange. When they didn’t say anything more, Adelaide added, “I should have stayed here with you.”

“No,” Doyle disagreed. “As I told Harry last night, you two need your rest too. I’m glad you didn’t stay up all night with him.”

“I didn’t do much sleeping at the hotel either,” Adelaide said. “Who can sleep after everything that happened yesterday? Unless you were shot and drugged full of morphine, of course,” she added, turning back to Doyle once more.

“Adelaide,” Doyle said around a sigh, “Harry told me what happened. I am so very sorry.”

Adelaide tried to smile, but it was one full of sadness and pain, and it didn’t quite reach her eyes. For a moment, it looked like she was about to cry. Her bottom lip quivered, but then she shook her head and squared her shoulders. After she had struggled to contain her emotions, she finally said, “It is what it is. I did what I had to do. When it comes right down to it, I’d much rather have you here than a murderous traitor, believe me.”

“As would I,” Harry said, stepping up behind Adelaide. He lifted his hand from his side, fully intending on laying it on Adelaide’s shoulder. In the end, however, he thought better of it and let his hand drop back down to his waist. Harry cleared his throat uncomfortably, which drew Adelaide’s attention.

She glanced back over her shoulder at him, still trying her best to smile. “You too, you know. I never would have forgiven myself if something had happened to either one of you.”

Harry’s very first instinct was to make a smartass comment, but he forced himself to stop. This really wasn’t the time for those sorts of things and besides, if Harry ever had a hope (as small as it currently was) of anything happening between him and Adelaide, that certainly wasn’t the way to her heart. It was one of the few times Harry could ever remember censoring himself and it was strange. Suddenly, Harry couldn’t think of anything else to say, and he was left blinking at Adelaide in a mild form of shock. What was it about these two that they were able to silence him when no one else could?

Harry thought he caught the smallest smirk forming on Adelaide’s lips before she faced Doyle more fully again. Doyle, on the other hand, was watching the two of them closely, and there was something knowing about his expression. Harry almost felt like there was an inside joke between the two of them that he wasn’t privy to. Before he had the chance to inquire about it, however, he was rudely interrupted.

“Again, Mister Houdini?”

Turning towards the door, Harry saw that the doctor had stuck his head into the room. This was Doctor Farber, who had taken over for Doctor Steiner in the early morning hours. This new doctor had already chased Harry out of the room more times than both of them probably cared to remember.

“Constable Stratton came to visit Doctor Doyle,” Harry protested, putting his hands up in a show of innocence. “This is Constable Stratton of Scotland Yard,” he added, gesturing towards Adelaide and nodding his head seriously.

Harry suddenly turned on his heel and asked Doyle, “You remember Constable Stratton, don’t you? She was with us when we saved the president. She came to see how you were doing.”

“Really, Harry,” Arthur commented dryly, rolling his eyes. “We’ve already established that I don’t have amnesia.”

“We really can’t have you continually disturbing Doctor Doyle like this,” Doctor Farber said, coming farther into the room. “He’s still recovering from a very serious injury and he’s far from being out of the woods. He needs rest more than anything.”

Harry was about to argue with the doctor, but then he felt Adelaide’s gentle hand on his arm.

“It’s okay, Harry,” Adelaide said quietly. “We’ll be right outside if you need anything,” she told Doyle, momentarily laying her hand on top of his again. “I’ll be sure to come back in and see you before I leave for the night.”

“Try and get Harry to go with you this time,” Doyle said, “would you? I’d rather see him get some sleep than restlessly pacing around this place all night.”

“I wouldn’t have to restlessly pace around all night if they would let me see you in the first place,” Harry mumbled as he and Adelaide were ushered out.

“Doctor?” Doyle called before they reached the door. When the three stopped to look back at him, Doyle asked, “Can I please speak with Harry for a few moments? It’s important.”

The doctor glanced back and forth between Doyle and Harry, but then he finally agreed. “I suppose so.” Turning to Harry, he reiterated, “A few minutes. Doctor Doyle needs his rest.” Then he added to Doyle, “Just until breakfast arrives, and then I want you to eat and get some sleep.”

Doyle nodded in compliance.

Harry didn’t say anything while he waited for Adelaide and the doctor to leave, but once they were gone, he complained, “Yes, I know you need your rest. Good grief. You think they’d tire of telling me that. It’s not like I’m being obnoxiously loud or boisterous while I’m in here. They should know how hard that is for me.”

Doyle took a deep breath and let it out slowly. He didn’t say anything at first, but focused his attention on his hands. They were clasped atop his stomach where he was currently twiddling his thumbs like he had nothing better to do.

“I can’t hear you unless you speak up, Doc,” Harry tried spurring him on.

Raising his eyes to look at Harry, Doyle said, “I don’t want to embarrass you. I know you’re not exactly the most open person about this sort of thing.”

This grabbed Harry’s interest. “About what?” he asked, taking a few steps closer to the bed.

Doyle opened his mouth, but then he only licked at his lips for a moment. He closed his eyes momentarily before he admitted, “I woke up a little while ago – before you and Adelaide came in.” Glancing at the bright morning sunlight streaming in through the window, he said, “I think the sunshine woke me up, because I became aware of this intense light in the room. For a moment, I almost thought I had started bleeding and was in the operating room again or something.”

“You’re stalling,” Harry observed.

“Am I?”

Harry nodded once, taking another step forward. He was now close enough to touch the foot of the bed, which he did. He leaned over, resting his hands on the metal railing that served as a footboard. It was then that he had an intense wave of déjà vu wash over him. He was suddenly reminded of when Doyle had been poisoned with ergot and had laid near death then as well.

“You know you can tell me,” Harry said quietly, “whatever it is.”

Doyle tore his eyes away from the window, smiling at Harry appreciatively. “I know,” he whispered. Doyle swallowed audibly before he continued. “I was lying here, thinking about everything that had happened, and then…it was the strangest thing. I almost thought I was still asleep and dreaming, but then I realized I was very much awake. But I started getting these flashes of a conversation with you that…I don’t remember having. Only I wasn’t replying; you were just talking to me. I think it must have been at some point when I was unconscious and you came in to talk to me. You were telling me things that I really don’t think you ever wanted me to repeat, but I feel like I have to.”

Harry suddenly felt his face burning. He knew where this was going, and Doyle was right – Harry didn’t exactly want him to repeat these things, but he let Doyle go on anyway.

“You said I was your best friend,” Doyle said, and silence hung in the room for several moments after. When Harry didn’t reply, Doyle asked, “Why didn’t you ever tell me that before?”

“Because you’re right!” Harry cried. He used the footboard, pushing himself up straighter and away from the bed. “I do get embarrassed by these sorts of things. I was never raised to blabber on about a bunch of oversentimental things like my feelings. The only person I ever did that with was my mother, and it’s different with women anyway. I think they almost expect that sort of thing, but under no circumstances do you do it with other men. That’s just weird.”

“I know,” Doyle agreed. He waited for a long time before he added, “That’s why I never said it either.”

Harry had begun to resume his usual hospital practice of pacing, but he quickly stopped and turned at Doyle’s words. “What?”

“That’s why I never told you that you were my best friend either,” Doyle said slowly, clearly.

Harry stared at his friend for a very long time like the man might have a screw loose. All at once, Harry couldn’t care less that they were delving into a very sentimental conversation. Harry felt all sorts of emotions roaring to life inside of him. He felt incredibly touched that Doyle would say such a thing to him. He felt his egotistical self wondering why no one else had ever told him that before, since he _was_ so amazing. He felt sad that it had taken him so long to find a best friend. He felt grateful that someone had stuck with him long enough to come to such a conclusion about him, and that Doyle had decided that he was _worth_ even being befriended in the first place.

Harry felt like he should say something, but he didn’t quite know what. For the second time in his life, Harry Houdini was rendered speechless by a man who wore nightshirts, no less. He was almost waiting for Doyle to break the silence that had fallen, but he seemed to be waiting for Harry to go on. To gauge how Harry would react before he ended up embarrassing the both of them beyond repair.

Harry forced a laughed, a slightly uncomfortable sound that was meant to make some sort of noise. Just so they weren’t standing there in awkward silence like this. Harry reached up a hand and ran it across the back of his neck. Then something occurred to him, and he latched onto the idea. “But you always act like I’m the biggest insufferable ass on the face of the planet.”

“And that’s because you are!” Doyle replied without missing a beat. “I’ve told you that you are. You know that you are.”

Harry’s hands were on his hips, and he was resuming that position that he was so very fond of – standing with chest puffed out like he terribly important. “But you love the hell out of me anyway, right?” he asked smugly.

Doyle simply stared at him with narrowed eyes – that expression he gave Harry when he wished that the other man would just shut up already. “For some inexplicable reason,” Doyle admitted around a sigh, “yes.”

Harry grinned at this. He rocked back and forth on his heels, seeming to bask in the compliments he was being given.

“Oh, shut up,” Doyle muttered.

“Again,” Harry replied, “I didn’t say anything.” Quickly, however, his expression turned serious. A part of him wanted to say something to Doyle before the moment passed and it was lost to them forever. Hanging his head in a show of humility – something that was so foreign to him, it almost shocked him – Harry said, “You know, I knew that you were my friend. You had to be to stick with me for so long. A part of me even hoped and maybe even wished that you enjoyed my company as much as I enjoyed yours.” He paused, shaking his head as he bit at his lower lip. “But it never occurred to me that you might think of me as a best friend.”

“Oh, Harry,” Doyle said, “how many friends – how many close friends do you think I have?”

“I…I don’t know,” Harry said slowly. “We never really talk about that aspect of ourselves. I always assumed you have lots of writer friends who you talk writing and books with. Like Bram.”

“Not as many as you’d think,” Doyle told him. “I’ve lost contact with a lot of them over the years, and the ones I still am in contact with, like Bram, I only see occasionally. Once I got married and had kids, I didn’t have as much time for friends as I used to. It’s sad the way that always happens, isn’t it? You and Adelaide are the only two people I see on a regular basis outside of my family and Vera. How are you supposed to maintain a close friendship when you hardly see someone anymore? And…you mentioned this too, didn’t you?” Doyle was frowning, trying to desperately cling to a memory that was nearly lost to him. “I’m like you in a lot of ways, because I don’t have any other really close friends.”

“That was me rambling,” Harry said quickly, attempting to cover up his embarrassment. “I said a lot of things and that was me talking out of my ass to try and make myself feel better.”

“Nevertheless,” Doyle said pointedly, “it was true. Touie _is_ my best friend in many ways, as it should be. But I think people always make the mistake of assuming they don’t need to keep up their other friendships when they get married, because their spouse is the greatest friend they could ever want for. And that’s true, but it’s still important to spend time with friends…otherwise you end up like me – desperately missing your wife, but not sure who to turn to who make it better.”

“And me,” Harry agreed with him. “Here I am, frantically missing my mother and…if not for you and Adelaide, I’d have absolutely no clue what to do with myself.”

“Yes,” Doyle said quietly. “You have no idea how alone I felt once my wife fell unconscious, do you? I have the children, of course, and I love them desperately, but it’s still not a replacement for adult companionship. Then out of nowhere, you and Adelaide fell into my lap – exactly what I had been hoping for.”

“I know,” Harry said. He had narrowed his eyes in thought before he said, “When I still had my mother, it didn’t even occur to me that I was missing out on anything. And then when this whole thing started with the two to you, it wasn’t even something I knew I had been wishing for until I had it. You two filled a void in my life before I even knew it was there.” Hanging his head, Harry tried to swallow the lump that threatened to form in his throat. “Even more so now that she’s gone.”

When Harry looked up at Doyle again, he was aware that there were fresh tears in his eyes. Quite suddenly, however, that didn’t seem to matter to him. They were being honest with each other here, and it was just him and Doyle, Harry reminded himself. Harry had already spent hours out in the waiting room, hoping and praying that he would get the chance to tell Doyle how he truly, and now he wasn’t going to let this opportunity pass him by. He wouldn’t. In the end, he decided, it was much more important that he be honest with Doyle now rather than trying to keep up appearances. Harry had already done enough of that in his lifetime to make up for it anyway.

“I’m afraid I’m guilty of some rather selfish thoughts,” Harry admitted.

“What do you mean?”

Harry took a deep breath before proceeding. “Adelaide was telling me that she might not stay at Scotland Yard after this.”

Doyle’s mouth fell open. “She’s thinking of leaving the police force?” He sounded scandalized.

“Unfortunately,” Harry answered, and then he made a face. “And that’s where I’m guilty of selfish thoughts. At first, the only thing I could think about was trying to convince her to change her mind, because I wanted her to remain a cop.”

“You didn’t,” Doyle interjected flatly.

“No!” Harry snapped. “Do give me some credit. I said I was guilty of selfish thoughts, not necessarily actions. I was able to control myself, thank you very much.”

“Well, there is a first time for everything,” Doyle replied.

Harry narrowed his eyes at Doyle, but then something occurred to him. He and Doyle were already falling into their old pattern of bickering like an old married couple, so Harry really had nothing to complain about, did he? This is what he’d wanted so desperately, what he was so terrified of losing, and now he finally had it back.

Around the smirk that started to spread over his lips, Harry said, “I didn’t, but I wanted to. Very badly. Because I suddenly couldn’t imagine my life without this little detective team we’ve put together, and we can’t keep doing it if she’s no longer a cop. The only reason they let us traipse around in crime scenes is because she’s there to babysit us. If she didn’t work there any longer, they’d throw us out. Do you think they’d see fit to assign anyone else to chaperone us? Adelaide’s the only one they think that lowly of.”

“And I’d miss that, too, Harry,” Doyle agreed. “More than you know. You have no idea how much I’ve come to depend on this now. With Touie unconscious and with my writing not going so well anymore, what the hell else am I going to do with my life? But you have to remember that it is her decision.”

“I know.”

“She’d only come to resent us if we tried to change her mind for our own personal gain.”

“I know that too,” Harry sighed. “And I wouldn’t try and change her mind. Believe it or not, I respect her too much to do that to her. She deserves – and she _needs_ – to make this decision on her own. _She_ has to decide what’s right for her without our interference.”

“Hm,” Doyle considered this. “Perhaps I’m having more of an effect on you than either of us realize.”

“It isn’t just you,” Harry said. “It’s her too. I think back on all those things I said to her and…why didn’t you try and stop me?”

“I reckon I did.”

“You should have tried harder,” Harry muttered. “But the point is, what the hell are we going to do now if she does decide to leave the force?”

“You have your shows. You’ll hardly be bored, and I suppose I’ll try and get back into my writing more seriously,” Doyle said. “And…” Doyle paused for a very long time, then he said very cautiously, “You’re going to think I’m crazy.”

“I may already be crazy enough for the both of us,” Harry said. “I can’t possibly judge you for it.”

“Maybe you were right,” Doyle told him. “Perhaps I should just give the public what they want and be done with it.”

Harry blinked at first, not really sure what Doyle was getting at, but then it hit him all at once. “You decided to let him live?” Harry asked around a smirk.

“Not live, I don’t think,” Doyle disagreed. “I’m still going to keep the bastard dead. Believe me, I would go crazy if I brought him back.” He raised a hand to his face, rubbing at his eyes. “He already almost killed me once. I’d hate to see what would happen if I brought him back. But what’s stopping me from writing stories that take place _before_ he died?”

“I don’t get it,” Harry replied. “So what difference does it makes if he’s dead or not?”

“It makes a good deal of difference,” Doyle said, “believe me. If he was alive, my publishers would try to goad me into another doing another collection of serials, and I _can’t_ be put onto that sort of tight schedule again. _That_ was what almost killed me.”

“And we don’t need you dying anymore,” Harry added. “We’ve had quite enough of that.”

“Exactly,” Doyle agreed. “At least this way, I can make it into a novel and take my time with it. I’ll be able to switch between that and other projects if he gets to be too much again, and I can say it was a one-off. There are no more Sherlock Holmes stories after that one.”

“Until the next time there is,” Harry commented smugly. “Come on, you couldn’t even keep him dead the first time.”

“I’ve told you,” Doyle retorted, “he’s still dead!”

“The public isn’t going to know that,” Harry disagreed. “They’re going to be falling all over themselves too much to care about technicalities. Believe me, I know. You give them what they want, they’ll eat it up, and they’ll just want more and more. It’s a never-ending cycle.”

“Eh, I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it,” Doyle mused. “It’ll at least shut them up for a little while.”

Harry stared at him for a very long time before he asked, “So what made you change your mind about this?”

Doyle stared down at his hands, still clasped on his stomach. He pursed his lips before he said, “This is the part where you’ll think I’m crazy.”

Harry took a few steps closer to the bed. “Try me. I won’t think you’re crazy. Believe me.”

Doyle smiled ironically. “It was something that happened right after I passed out in the hotel.”

“After you got shot?” Harry asked unnecessarily. How many times had Doyle passed out in a hotel, after all? At least that Harry knew about. But then he decided that he didn’t want to know if there were any other times. “Oh, that’s great,” Harry muttered then. “I was having a heart attack, because I thought you were dying, and you were having dreams about Holmes.”

“Sorry,” Doyle said sheepishly. “But yeah, I was. Actually, it was probably more of a delusion than a dream. He came and talked to me, and…then I remembered how much Touie loved Holmes. Then I thought how amazing it would be if she ever woke up again and found that I was in the process of writing more about him. Or how great would it be if it was already published and she woke up to find a finished book on her bedside table? I keep imagining the look on her face, and _that’s_ what really made me want to do it.”

Pausing, Doyle finally directed his gaze back up to Harry, to the man that may or may not have had a hand in that decision.

“You’re welcome,” Harry said complacently.

Doyle tried to hide the smile that was forming on his lips. “All right. I don’t know if that would have happened had you not given me that speech about not giving up on her. So thank you.”

Harry took a moment to bask in the glow of being congratulated for a job well done. But then that quickly faded when he realized that all of this might leave him high and dry. “Well great. You will be writing after all. Adelaide might be looking for another job. What in the hell as I supposed to do?”

“Come on,” Doyle said. “Like I said, you’ll have plenty to do. It’s not like you’re a brilliant entertainer, beloved by millions or anything.”

“Well yeah,” Harry agreed, “but…that’s a big part of my life suddenly gone if we don’t keep up this little group of ours. How strange is that? Something we didn’t even have a few short months ago, and I already can’t imagine my life without it. How does something become that important to you in such a short amount of time? It’s almost mind-boggling.”

“It is,” Doyle said. “But you know, even if that does change, you won’t have to write me and Adelaide out of your life forever. You two have gotten quite close. I’m sure she won’t want to stop spending time with you. And look at the two of us – we’ve just admitted that we’re each other’s best friends. You think I’m going to suddenly want to stop seeing you just because we won’t be able to go chasing after criminals anymore?”

“You mean, you’ll still drop by to go out to lunch?” Harry asked, sounding a bit uncertain. “Can I still come over? Can we still take train trips to see the countryside?”

Doyle raised an eyebrow at him.

“What?” Harry asked. “Don’t deny that some of our best times were spent on trains. And staying in hotels and as guests in other people’s houses. I’d miss your damn nightshirts if I didn’t continue to see them on a regular basis.”

Doyle rolled his eyes, then nodded in a perturbed fashion. “All right. I wasn’t going to tell you this, because your head is already big enough as it is. But the children have been asking when you might be dropping by and doing some magic tricks for them again.”

Harry grinned, puffing out his chest once more. “Of course they have. And I am going to convince at least one of them to become a magician. Don’t think I won’t.”

“Kingsley’s already firmly decided he’s going to be a writer,” Doyle disagreed proudly, “so don’t even try and change his mind.”

“There’s still Mary,” Harry said simply. “She doesn’t have to be a housewife, you know. One of the many wonders of the new century.”

“Does Adelaide know the effect she’s having on you?” Doyle asked, quickly changing the subject.

Harry sighed heavily, turning his head to stare out the window. Shaking his head in response, Harry said, “I don’t think so. And therein lies the problem.”

_To be continued…_


	6. Mein Hertz

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author’s note: We finally have the titular chapter!

“What do you mean?” Doyle asked, slowly turning his head to watch Harry more closely. “What problem?”

Harry didn’t reply right away. He simply stared out the window for a while longer before giving Doyle a sideways look. “If I tell you something in confidence, can you promise it will stay between us?”

“Of course.”

“Because she’d kill me if she knew I was talking about this with you.”

“About what?”

“When we were at Falcroft Manor,” Harry admitted, “I kissed her. That night right before you came to get us to investigate the source of the red mud.”

“I’m not stupid,” Doyle said around a soft laugh. “I knew something had happened. I pretended not to notice in the interest of saving the two you further embarrassment. I also pretended not to overhear your conversation in the basement.”

“The problem is,” Harry replied, “I still really want to kiss her again. And it’s making me crazy that I can’t. Every time I’m near her, things are growing incredibly more awkward, because it’s just about all I can think about.”

“Are you sure she doesn’t want you to?”

“You said you overheard our hushed conversation in the basement,” Harry told him. “She said ‘good’ when I told her it wouldn’t happen again.”

“What else was she supposed to say?”

Harry blinked at him. “What?”

“Perhaps she said it,” Doyle suggested, “because she thought she was supposed to. Don’t get me wrong, but you sort of made it sound like it had all been a mistake. She was obviously already embarrassed and didn’t want to make the situation worse, so she simply agreed with you that that would be for the best. But are you sure that’s how she really feels?”

“But why would she lie?” Harry sounded completely baffled.

“I know you’re used to getting what you want,” Doyle said. “You’re used to women falling at your feet, but Adelaide is probably quite a bit different than a lot of the women you’ve been involved with. Certainly much more different than Korzha at any rate.”

“Hey,” Harry cried, “don’t mock her!”

“I didn’t!” Doyle argued. “I simply said she’s different. You can’t deny that much.”

“All right,” Harry said. “I suppose I can’t.”

“And I wouldn’t say Adelaide is lying,” Doyle said, getting back to the topic at hand before they spent too much time on the intricacies of Harry’s women. “Not exactly. She’s probably just going along with you on it for the simple fact that she doesn’t want to cause more problems between the two of you.”

“Did she tell you this?”

“No,” Doyle said, “I’m just supposing. That’s all. But what if she did feel that way? It’s not outside the realm of possibility, is it?”

“Come on, Doyle,” Harry said. He began pacing the room again, making his way closer to the window. There he placed his hands on his hips, staring out at the grassy courtyard that spread out beneath Doyle’s room. “She’s strong, and refined, and proper, and under what circumstances would she ever want someone like me? I’m loud, and uncouth, and…everything she isn’t.”

Doyle considered this, tilting his head back and forth in thought. “They do say opposites attract. Just like that electromagnet and that chair in Adelaide’s room at Falcroft Manor. Even through a wooden floor.” When Harry didn’t reply to this, Doyle suggested, “Why don’t you ask her? Maybe she wants it just as much as you do, and she’s just too afraid to say so.”

Harry grimaced, turning back to face Doyle again. “I don’t know. I thought she made it pretty clear that she didn’t want it to happen again. What if she gets angry at me for being presumptuous enough to even suggest such a thing?”

“Then I’m sure she’ll forgive you,” Doyle said. “You’ve done a lot of worse things than that in front of her. Believe me. There’s no harm in asking, and you won’t know until you do. Perhaps this will help to clear the air between you. Anyone can see the strain that it’s obviously put on the two of you.”

Shaking his head, Harry repeated, “I don’t know. What if it only makes things weirder between us? What if she _doesn’t_ want it? Then it’ll only serve to make her feel more awkward around me knowing that I do.”

“Things are already weird and awkward between you,” Doyle pointed out. “You can’t possibly make things much worse, can you?”

“There’s a first time for everything,” Harry said, “believe me. Especially where I’m concerned.”

“You?” Doyle asked incredulously. “The great Harry Houdini? You mean, everything you touch _doesn’t_ turn to gold?”

“I know,” Harry admitted. “Hard to believe, isn’t it?”

“Indeed,” Doyle said. “But the way I see it, you can ask her now and be done with it, or you can let this absolutely consume the two of you.”

“Well, I can’t possibly ask her about it now!” Harry exclaimed, throwing his hands up in frustration. “Do you have any idea how insensitive it would seem to spring this on her right after she shot and killed her own husband?”

Doyle stared at him for a very long time, the corner of his mouth curling up into a smirk. “You know, when you first met her, you wouldn’t have hesitated to do something so tasteless.”

Harry was silent for a moment as he shoved his hands into the pockets of his trousers. When he spoke again, his voice was very quiet, subdued. “I care about her. As hard as that is to believe. It isn’t about just wanting to go to bed with her anymore. I want something more with her and…I don’t know if that’s still even a possibility at this point.”

Doyle tilted his head back and forth in thought. “I imagine it is. She just admitted she cared about you, after all.”

“Yeah,” Harry agreed, “as a friend. That doesn’t mean she wants anything more. You’re my friend too, you know. That doesn’t mean I ever considered the possibility of going to bed with you, sorry to say.”

“Somehow I think I’ll get over it,” Doyle commented dryly. “But still, the two of you kissed.” Doyle squinted his eyes in thought and considered this before he added, “Adelaide isn’t the type to do things like that on a whim. Especially with you.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Harry demanded.

Doyle simply stared at him.

“Yeah, okay,” Harry muttered. “And she is incredibly strong. That’s part of what I like about her, but that doesn’t mean she’s infallible. People make mistakes – do things sometimes that they realize, in hindsight, were a bad idea. Believe me, I know. Once she kissed me, I think it was then that she realized she probably shouldn’t have. It was a product of the moment.”

“Why?” Doyle asked. His voice was hesitant, like he wasn’t sure if he should be prying into the matter at all. In the end, however, it was Harry who had brought it up, so Doyle pressed on. “What were you two talking about before it happened?”

Harry took a deep breath before whispering, “My mother.” He opened and closed his mouth several times before adding, “I was emotional. She was comforting me.”

“Oh,” Doyle said, then quickly added, “still, that doesn’t mean anything. Maybe she’s content to let you believe that, because she was so embarrassed by your reaction. I agree that it would probably be prudent to wait a while, but ask her.”

“I wouldn’t even know how to bring it up,” Harry mused. “’Hey, Addy, I was wondering how you really felt when you kissed me.’”

“You can always disguise it as another Truth Trade,” Doyle suggested.

Harry appeared scandalized. “I can’t believe you would suggest such a thing.”

“Why not?” Doyle asked smugly. “You were the one that came up with that brilliant idea in the first place.”

“I told you,” Harry said around a sigh. “Things are different now. It’s been a long time since I initiated a Truth Trade. If I bring it up now, she’ll just assume I’m trying to be forward again.”

“And when has that ever stopped you?”

Harry shrugged, and it was a long time before he let his shoulders drop back down into a relaxed position. “It does now,” Harry told him. “I have absolutely no hope of anything ever happening with her if I keep doing things like that.” Houdini considered this for a very long time, but then he snorted in laughter and shook his head.

“What?” Doyle asked him.

“Who would have thought?” Harry said. “Here I am, a master magician and showman, confiding my feelings to you of all people. How did we ever end up here?”

“It started when I got shot, I believe,” Doyle said. Just then, he shifted in his bed, trying to find a more comfortable position. He grimaced in pain, his hand going instinctively to the right side of his abdomen where his bullet wound was.

“You just lie still!” Harry scolded, hurrying over to Doyle’s bed. “You were only shot twenty-four hours ago.” He pressed a gentle hand to Doyle’s shoulder, trying to keep him from moving any farther.

“It was mostly numbed by the morphine they gave me,” Doyle said, trying to catch his breath from the bolt of pain that was still coursing through him. “That was, until I moved like that. I sort of forgot it must still hurt that much.” Doyle grumbled then, muttering something intelligible. He brought his hand up to his face, rubbing at it harshly.

“What?” Harry asked in concern. “Should I fetch the doctor?”

“Why, Harry,” Doyle said, dropping his hand to stare at the man over his bed. “Is that concern I detect on your part?”

“Yes!” Harry cried, waving his hands around in emphasis. “How many best friends do you think I have? What, do you think I go to the store and pick a new one up when I run out?” But then Harry suddenly crossed his arms over his chest when he caught the complacent expression on Doyle’s face. “Oh, we already admitted this to each other,” Harry said. “Don’t act so full of yourself because I’m being so honest about it now.”

“I know,” Doyle sighed. Even though he tried to cover it up, and despite the fact that he was suddenly in an inordinate amount of pain, it was a clear sign of contentment. “And no, I don’t need the doctor. I’m fine. At least as well as I can be right now.”

Harry didn’t miss the clear note of sadness in his voice. “What do you mean?” he asked.

“I know I’m doing extremely well for someone with my injuries,” Doyle admitted. “I’m awake and I’m lucid, which is a huge improvement over where I was just a few short hours ago. I know that. And this is a bullet wound. It’s going to take time to recover, but…it’s going to be ages until I can get home. It’s going to be ages before I’ll be able to see my kids again.” Doyle’s hand was back up to his face again, rubbing his eyes, as if he was trying to massage away all the horrible thoughts he was having. “I hate the thought of them being all alone with Vera for God knows how long.”

“You trust her with them though,” Harry pointed out. “She wouldn’t be there now if you didn’t.”

“Of course I do,” Doyle admitted. “They’ll be fine with her. I have absolutely no doubt about that. But…” Doyle broke off, a wry smile forming on his lips. He stared down at his other hand, which was currently lightly pressing against his side, against his bullet wound. “I’m remembering all sorts of things now as the time passes. You talked about that too when I was unconscious,” Doyle said, raising his eyes to Harry again. “About how my children need me and how I can’t leave them alone. Even though they are taken care of now, I still need to be with them. Now it’s going to be forever until I can be. Who knows how long I’ll be in hospital for, and it’ll probably be even longer than that until they give me the okay to travel. What are they going to do without me for such a long time?”

Harry considered this for a moment before he asked, “Have they ever been to the States before?”

“No!” Doyle exclaimed. He dropped his hand from his face, giving Harry a firm glare. “They have their school and they have their friends. And they’re home. You can’t upset their entire lives to bring them here for an unspecified amount of time. I won’t have them living in a hotel room for months.”

“I can get them a suite,” Harry offered. “Vera too. Even nicer than the one I keep in London. They’d love it. It would be like a vacation. I can get them a private tutor too so you wouldn’t have to worry about them missing any school.”

Doyle opened his mouth to reply, but then he shut it again almost immediately. He closed his eyes, and if Harry wasn’t mistaken, he thought he saw Doyle’s bottom lip give the tiniest quiver. A moment later, however, it was gone, and Doyle was looking at him rather firmly again.

“I appreciate the offer, Harry,” Doyle said quietly, softly. “You’ll never even know how grateful I am that you’d offer so much to me and to my children, no questions asked.”

“You’re my best friend,” Harry reiterated again, unnecessarily. It seemed that now they’d admitted something so personal to each other, Harry rather enjoyed repeating it. He reveled in the fact that he was able to call someone his best friend. As he’d already said, it wasn’t something that came along every day, and he’d almost missed the chance to tell Doyle that entirely. Harry wasn’t about to let an opportunity like that go again.

“Besides, I have the money,” Harry went on. “Who else am I going to spend it on now that Ma’s gone? And your children are the most important things in the world to you. I know that. If I can help to make your time here a little bit easier, I’ll do it.”

An expression passed over Doyle’s face. It was somewhere between one of sadness and one gratefulness. “Thank you for the offer, Harry. You really don’t know how much that means to me. But as I told you, I don’t want to disrupt their lives for such a long period of time. They need to be at home.”

“They need to be with you,” Harry pointed out.

“Be that as it may,” Doyle said, “they need to be with their mother too.” He gave Harry a pointed look. “Their place is with her. As it stands, Touie is still in much more dire straits than I am. I want them to be there in case anything happens to her while I’m gone. I’d never forgive myself if the unthinkable happens to her, and they weren’t there to say goodbye to her.”

Harry couldn’t exactly argue with that. For a brief moment, he blinked several times, trying desperately to keep the tears he felt forming there at bay. “You’re right,” he agreed, nodding. “I wouldn’t want them to miss that either.” Harry ran a hand over his face before he changed the subject.

“But you don’t have to worry about anything else, you know,” Harry said. “I was actually planning on coming back to New York with Ma for a while anyway, so this isn’t completely unplanned. Once you are released from the hospital, I’ll get you that suite I told you about and I’ll make sure you have the best nursemaids money can buy. They’ll take care of you until you can fully get back on your feet. And I’m going to stay here with you until you are able to travel back to England.”

“Harry-“ Doyle tried to protest, but Harry cut him off.

“I insist,” Harry said firmly.

“But you have shows in Europe,” Doyle said. “Despite the fact that you were planning on coming here, I know that wouldn’t have been for a while yet. You have performances set up for weeks.”

“Eh,” Harry muttered, waving his hand in the air. “They’ll survive without me. I’ll give everyone with a ticket a refund or give them free tickets to the encore performance of their choosing. I’ll make it up to them, but that’s not really important to me right now. What’s important to me is you and making sure you’re taken care of and getting better. For the foreseeable future, my place is here. With you.”

“Harry-“ Doyle attempted to argue again, but Harry wasn’t having any of it.

“Let me do this,” Harry pleaded. “Please. This is what’s right for me right now. It’s what I want to do. It’s what I need to do. Europe will still be there when I get back, and I’ll worry about it then. But right now, you’re the most important thing in the world to me. You’re my family, and I always take care of my family.” Harry stared at him.

Doyle finally nodded, then said, “All right. If it’s what you want to do…then I’d be very happy to have you by my side while I recover.” Doyle paused, then decided to add something so their conversation didn’t seem too emotional. “If anything, your constant loud mouth will be the biggest motivation I would ever need to get better.”

“Exactly.”

Silence then fell among the two men, during which Doyle watched Harry for a very long time. Finally, he said, “Thank you, Harry.”

“No need to thank me,” Harry said. “You’re not putting me out or inconveniencing me in any way, and I don’t want you to think you are, okay? This is what I need to do. This is what’s right for me. Is to be with you.”

“Thank you nonetheless,” Doyle reiterated. “You know, it’s not every day you come across a friend who would put their entire life on hold for you. So when you are lucky enough to find one, you don’t let them go unappreciated.”

“And you don’t let them go not knowing how important they are to you,” Harry interjected. He was currently staring down at his shoes, trying not to let the embarrassment of the situation get to him. This was what he wanted, he kept reminding himself, and now that he had it, he wasn’t about to let the opportunity be lost to him again.

“I spent an inordinate amount of time in the waiting room yesterday,” Harry admitted, “wishing and hoping that I wouldn’t lose you too. That you wouldn’t die before I had a chance to tell you how much you meant to me.” When Harry finally looked up again to meet Doyle’s eyes, it wasn’t quite as uncomfortable as he was expecting it to be. “Now that I’ve told, this is my way of showing you as well. Until you are back on your feet, I’m going to do everything in my power to make you as comfortable as possible. If there’s anything at all that you want or need, Arthur, I want you to ask, because if it’s at all in my power, I’ll do it or get it for you. All right?”

Doyle squirmed slightly in his bed. “That might be difficult for me. I’m hardly the demanding type, and I spend most of my time looking after the children and Touie – I’m used to doing all of that.”

“Well, you can’t right now,” Harry reminded him. “You’re not going to be able to for a while, but I’m going to make sure that you don’t want for anything in the meantime. Okay? I want you to try. Because if I know you, you won’t say anything out of the interest of not wanting to bother or inconvenience me. You’ll be in desperate need of the toilet, but you won’t say anything, because you’ll be mortally embarrassed of such a thing.”

“Yes, I would be!” Doyle exclaimed. “And with good reason!”

They were only talking about the situation, and Harry could already see bright patches of red standing out on Doyle’s cheeks. At least it was good that he was getting some of his color back, Harry decided, even if it was at the expense of the other man’s dignity.

“Men don’t help men with that sort of thing,” Doyle muttered, making a face.

“Tough luck,” Harry insisted.

“You said you were going to hire me some nice nursemaids to help with those things,” Doyle reminded him.

“And I will,” Harry replied, “but until I can get them lined up, and in the case they’re not available, you’ve got me. Besides, you wouldn’t want to rob me of the chance to do these things myself and embarrass the hell out of you in the process, would you? It’s win win.” Harry wiggled his eyebrows at the other man.

“Harry, for God’s sake!”

“You just admitted that I’m your best friend,” Harry said, his tone turning serious again. “If you can’t let your best friend help you to the toilet, who can you trust with that sort of thing?”

“A nursemaid,” Doyle mumbled. “One who’s trained for that sort of thing and has seen it all before.”

“So you’d rather have a complete stranger see you naked than your best friend,” Harry concluded. “That makes perfect sense.”

Doyle rolled his eyes. “I never should have admitted such a thing to you. You’re never going to let me hear the end of it, are you?”

“Nope,” Harry said proudly, smirking and taking the opportunity to puff his chest out again. “But Arthur? You honestly don’t need to feel bad, or guilty, or embarrassed for asking me for _anything_ ,” Harry stressed. “Please know that. Whether it’s food, or a change of clothes, or books to read, or a pen and paper to write with, or yes, even help getting to the toilet – anything you need is yours. All you have to do is ask me for it. All right? I promise I won’t think any less of you for it.”

“You promise?” Doyle asked uncertainly.

“Yes.”

“You won’t make fun of me for needing help to the loo?”

Harry held up his hand, his thumb and index finger a small distance apart. “Maybe just a little.”

“Harry!”

Harry only grinned boldly in response to this, but then his expression suddenly changed. He hung his head a moment later and admitted, “You wouldn’t believe how afraid I was of never having that kind of exchange with you again.” Harry looked up at Doyle from under his eyelashes before he said, “You know, my mother had a saying. When I was little, any time she was looking for me, or my brothers, or sister, she would call, ‘Wo is mein Hertz?’ It means, ‘Where is my heart?’ And when she found us, she would smile, and hug us, and say, ‘Es ist mein Hertz!’”

“’There is my heart,’” Doyle supplied the translation.

“Yes,” Harry replied quietly. “And last night, I have to admit that I felt a little bit like her. I kept thinking that to myself – ‘Wo is mein Hertz?’ – and I was hoping that…I’d be able to find it. That I wouldn’t lose you forever.” Swallowing hard, Harry looked down at his hands where he was wringing them at the thought. Finally looking up at Doyle again, he said, “Because I don’t know what I would have done if something had happened to you. I think…I just might have crawled into my bed and never come out, because I can’t imagine going on without you. You and Adelaide have become like a lifeline to me. I told you how much you kept me going on after Ma died, and…I think I would have been _destroyed_ if you had died too.”

“Harry…” Doyle began at the other man’s words, but then sucked in a sudden gulp of air that almost sounded like a sob. He raised his hand to his mouth, apparently trying to hold in any other cries that threatened to escape. When he was seemingly reassured that the sensation had passed, he patted the mattress next to him. “Come sit down.”

Not moving from his spot, Harry only stared at the older man. He slowly raised an eyebrow.

“Would you humor me for a moment?” Doyle asked, feigning annoyance. “We’re being honest here and that’s what I’m attempting to do.”

Harry sighed heavily, as if Doyle was inconveniencing him greatly. Finally, however, he moved from his place and as gently as he could, he lowered himself to the mattress, trying not to jostle Doyle too much.

“You keep talking about how much I’ve done for you since we’ve met,” Doyle began. “I don’t think you realize how much you’ve done for me as well. I keep thinking about that time in the carriage when we were investigating Martin Upton. That was when I first told you that Touie has tuberculosis and has been unresponsive, and it had been such a long time since I confided that in _anyone_. Not since it happened, and then, it was out of necessity. I had to tell our family and friends what had happened – explain it all to them. And then…I didn’t speak about it since. Apart from answering the occasional question on her progress…it was almost as if it didn’t happen. And a part of me liked it that way. But…it’s nice having people in my life that I feel safe confiding that in. You’ll never know how much it meant to me having you come to the hospital that day she woke up.”

“I would have been there too when she fell unconscious again if I could have,” Harry said.

“I know,” Doyle replied, “and I’m glad you were finally getting some rest after nearly dying!” His voice grew sharply louder on the last few words.

Harry scoffed at this, diverting his eyes from Doyle. “I didn’t almost die.”

“Harry,” Doyle said flatly, “I was there. I was with you in the hospital after you had a seizure. I saw you passing out in Downey’s tent, because your fever was ridiculously high. In case you’re forgetting, I’m a doctor. I told you that your brain would shut down if your temperature kept going up, and you almost did get to that point.” When Harry still didn’t acknowledge this or look back to his friend, Doyle added, “Look, I know you’re never going to stop attempting death-defying stunts. It’s what you do, and I could never ask you to stop. But I do wish you’d stop being so blasé about your health. Whether you want to admit it or not, you did almost die, and I think you know it.”

After a moment of silence, Doyle reached out and laid a hand on Harry’s arm. This finally got his attention, and he turned his head to face Doyle again.

“Hey,” Harry said nonchalantly, “I’m not going anywhere for a long time, Doc.”

“Harry,” Doyle said firmly. “You’re important to me, okay? As much as you’d like to believe it, you’re not invincible, and I don’t want to see you taking careless and unnecessary risks. Just as it terrified you to see me get shot, it scared me to death to see you lying in that hospital bed, knowing there was nothing I could do about it. It frightens me to think about what’ll happen the next time you refuse to properly take care of yourself. Because I don’t know what I’d do if something happened to you either.”

Without a word, Harry simply laid his free hand across the one Doyle had on his arm. Neither of them said anything more, and they didn’t have to.

_To be continued…_


End file.
